Han Schröder

Han Schröder was born in Utrecht, Netherlands, and raised in the Rietveld-Schröder House. With the encouragement of her family, she developed her artistic talent and worked with architect Gerrit Rietveld and craftsman G. van de Groenekan on carpentry and furniture making during her teenage years. In 1936, she entered the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, and graduated in 1940 with a degree in Diplom Architekt.

Beginning in 1949, Schröder worked first as a draftsman and later as a personal assistant to architect Gerrit Rietveld on various projects, including federal housing, schools, exhibitions, and the Sonsbeek Sculpture Pavilion. She opened her own office in 1954, becoming one of only two registered female architects among 3,000 male architects in the Netherlands at that time.

In 1963, Schröder emigrated to the United States and accepted a position at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York, where she taught interior design. She later taught at the Parsons School of Design in New York City (1966) and at the New York Institute of Technology from 1967 to 1979. In 1979, she became a professor of interior design at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, retiring in 1988. Schröder passed away in Amsterdam in 1992.