Han Schröder

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The Schröder House in Utrecht where Han Schröder lived as a child and later helped to restore as supervising architect

Johanna Erna Else Schröder (16 July 1918, in Utrecht – 20 March 1992, in Amsterdam) was a Dutch architect and educator. After becoming one of the first women to practice architecture in the Netherlands, she spent an extended period in the United States teaching interior design.[1]

Early life and Education[]

Schröder lived in the Schröder House in Utrecht, the Netherlands, together with her mother, Truus Schröder-Schräder, who was also an interior decorator. The house with moving partitions was designed in 1924 by Gerrit Thomas Rietveld who became a friend of Schröder's and an important influence on her future works. In a personal interview with the International Archive of Women in Architecture, Schröder described the moving partitions are meant to be "the medium for dynamic flexibility", as a house is not supposed to be "a series of cubicles."[2]

While a teenager, she worked on furniture design with both Rietveld and with Gerard van de Groenekan. In 1936, she attended the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, graduating as an architect in 1940.[1][3]

Career[]

Kromme Waal 23 and 24, Amsterdam where Han lived with her sister Marianne and Cora de Castro, a friend

Schröder spent the years of the Second World War in Portugal working for the Red Cross and in the United Kingdom. In 1946, she returned to the Netherlands where she worked at Amsterdam's Modern Art Museum until 1949. Thereafter she worked with Rietveld on housing projects, schools, exhibitions, and the . In 1954, Schröder opened her own office in the Netherlands as one of just two registered women architects among some 3,000 men. Key designs included the in Zeist, a centre for rejected children in Ellecom, an auditorium for the , and , a recreation building for employees working in the steel industry.[3] In 1962, Schröder designed a low-cost subsidized housing complex that maximized the use of small spaces using moving partitions for retired, single nurses in Austerlitz, a village in the Netherlands. This project received much attention from the general public and was inaugurated by Queen Juliana.[2]

After emigrating to the United States in 1963, she taught interior design at Adelphi University and the Parsons School of Design before being appointed professor at the New York Institute of Technology. From 1972 to 1987, Schröder was the architect responsible for the restoration of Schröder House in Utrecht which is now a museum. Two of her designs are in the collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art.[1] From 1981 she taught at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia until her retirement as professor emerita in 1988.[1][3]

Schröder died in March 1992 at the in Amsterdam.[1]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e "Han Schroeder Dies; Interior Designer, 1973". New York Times, April 2, 1992. Retrieved 28 February 2012.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b International Archive of Women in Architecture, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Fall 1989, Vol.1 No.1https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/5625/news1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c "Han Schroeder: Architectural Papers, 1926-1998", International Archive of Women in Architecture. Retrieved 28 February 2012.

Sources[]

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