Gerrit Thomas Rietveld was born in 1888 as the son of a furniture maker in the city of Utrecht. Immediately after primary school he started working in his father's furniture workshop, first as a helper, then as a mate and eventually he became skilful at even the most complicated techniques. In his father's workshop he learned the tricks of the woodcraft trade. During this time Rietveld took evening classes at the School for Industrial Art in Utrecht.

The Rietveld Schröder House was the start of a long and successful career for Gerrit Rietveld as an architect. After designing the row of houses at Erasmuslaan in 1931 – four ultramodern mansions just a stone’s throw away from the Rietveld Schröder House – he had made a name for himself. His ambition was to build large-scale housing projects for the lower social classes. The simplicity of the architecture and the functionalism of his designs would contribute to comfortable homes for the working class and thus to the enlightenment of society. However, despite his contribution to some social housing projects in Utrecht, Rietveld was known mainly for his designs of country houses and villas commissioned by the well-to-do. Other prestigious projects in the 1950s and 1960s include the designs of the art academies in Amsterdam and Arnhem and of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Rietveld died in 1964.