Rietveld Schröderhuis online

In this project, the Centraal Museum in Utrecht and Waag realised The Rietveld Schröder house online, a website for the cultural heritage of Gerrit Thomas Rietveld in 2005.

The Rietveld Schroder house is considered as 'an unique and important icon in western civilization' and 'a masterpiece of human creativity', as stated by UNESCO, that has the building put on the World Heritage list. The house is built in 1924 by the architect and designer Gerrit Thomas Rietveld (1888-1964) for Truus Schröder-Schräder, a wealthy lady in Utrecht.   

Due to the delicate condition of the (experimental) building, the number of visitors to the house is limited. The challenge was to create an online experience of the house, which would be stimulating to visit the real house, but also has an additional value. The website offered a basic part with art historical and practical information and the possibility to search a database of all Rietveld related material, like drawings, models and posters.

The visitor could create it's own documentary, by choosing from a video archive one of the nine guides, who told about the history and design of the house. Among those guides were the curator of the museum, a Rietveld expert from the museum, designers, an architect, and others that shared their vision on the house.

The website was bi-lingual, Dutch and English, and was nominated for the Museums and the Web Award 2006, in the category 'Innovative'. The website remained online until the beginning of 2011.