architecture enlightens life

sorry for the late update. I guess youve been wondering what am I doing until I ignore my blog so badly, so let me tell you this; i’ve been drawing plans of the schroder house for nights- yeah right, drawing assignment. don’t even know why they call the subject as ‘design communications’. and I’m glad I’ve just submitted them today, and actually I’m still very sleepy right now.. you know, architecture students don’t sleep.

while i’m going to share my homework to the rest of the world, let me tell you a bit about this little schroder house by gerrit rietveld.

the year was early 1900s and there was one art movement called ‘de stijl’. right, it’s in dutch and it literally means ‘the style’. by know you would notice there were sudden colors such as yellow, red and blue on the building- because it is de stjil’s principle to reduce everything to the scratch.

they believe every masterpiece or any work of art were composed of the very basic elements such as vertical and horizontal lines, primary (red, blue and yellow) and monochrome colors. sounds like how a modern inkjet printer works. indeed. so, de stijl upholds that we all shall go back to the essence of all creation. sort of like that.

what about gerrit rietveld? who is this famous architect?

rietveld is actually both an architect and furniture designer. so, rietveld joined the de stijl movement and designed one of the monuments of de stijl movement is this simple looking chair, called the ‘red and blue chair’. the horizontal and vertical lines doesn’t obstruct or intersect with each other- allowing the lines to exist independently.

in fact, de stijl is all about simplicity of forms.

south west elevation

south east elevation

north east elevation.

red, blue and yellow. white, grey and black. horizontal and vertical. prominent elements in de stijl. they were arranged in harmony and order, although assymetrical.

elevation pictures from this nice vietnamese architect

interior is another thing. everything was so compact, the hallway only allows one person to walk across, yet everything is also purely functional. why? in schroder house, the furnitures were albeit very flexible and dynamic- chairs and tables can be folded, boxes can be slided into the interior of the wall and windows are removable.

but one thing I’m quite amazed is the first floor open plan. rietveld employed creative use of sliding doors in spaces, where at one time it could be a large open space for family, and the other time dividing partition rooms for everyone. sliding doors are just everywhere- if you want a room, you get it whenever you wanted.

so, how this house became famous?

because this is the only house designed according to de stijl movement. mention de stijl, everyone remembers rietveld and his schroder house. it was like the name schroder house was gerrit rietveld’s surname.

anyway, if you’re analysing the house like what I did, or in need to draw the house for your assignment; here is a great deal of help.

• the sketchup model of rietveld-schroder house!

or if you are in desperate need to have and download the CAD drawings (dwg) of the rietveld-schroder house..

I have these CAD drawings (dwg) for you to download- included are;

• ground floor plan, first floor plan, roof plan
• south west elevation, south east elevation, north east elevation
• section x-x, section y-y
• exterior axonometric
• cut-out interior axonometric

download: CAD drawings (dwg) of the rietveld-schroder house

notes 1; this is my few nights hardwork for my drawing assignment so if you are going to use it, would you leave me a comment or link me back. it would be nice for you to do that-

notes 2; it’s like secondary or tertiary source, so don’t expect this is 100% correct. but I would say they were consistent.

notes 3; I heard some of you told me that the drawing didn’t open well, so I wanted to remind that mine is done with autocad 2008, so you might want to ask your friends to transfer for you.

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