Rietveld Schröder House visitor guide — everything you need to know before visiting

At a glance

Slots

Every 20 minutes, eight people each, Tuesday to Sunday

Visit length

About 30 to 40 minutes

Tour

Multimedia tour in nine languages, staff upstairs

Address

Prins Hendriklaan 50, Utrecht; Ticket Office at no. 50a

How the 20-minute slots work

The house can only be visited with a reserved slot. A new slot starts every 20 minutes, from 11:00 to 12:20 in the morning and from 14:00 to 15:20 in the afternoon, with the house closed for lunch between 13:00 and 14:00. From the first Friday in May to the last Friday in August there are also Friday evening openings until 21:00.

Each slot admits up to eight people, which keeps the rooms quiet enough to protect a hundred-year-old interior and lets you actually see it. The flip side is arithmetic: ten daytime slots of eight means no more than eighty visitors on an ordinary day, so the next week or two fills first. The museum releases tickets for the coming three months, and even a museum card holder has to book a slot.

Arriving at the Ticket Office

The entrance is not the front door of the house. Check in at the Ticket Office just to the left of it, at Prins Hendriklaan 50a, about ten minutes before your slot. Staff scan your e-ticket, hand you a media player and give a short explanation of the tour. Bags and coats go in the free lockers there.

If you arrive 20 minutes early you can watch a short documentary that sets the scene; it plays continuously in a viewing room behind the shop. The shop sells books and Rietveld Schröder House souvenirs, and there is a coffee bar, Ukiyo Coffee, in the garden behind the house.

The tour, floor by floor

The tour starts outside. The first audio clip introduces the façades and the street, which makes sense once you see how deliberately the house turns away from the brick terrace it is attached to. Then you go in, pulling protective slippers over your shoes.

On the ground floor you are free to explore at your own pace. The rooms are arranged around a central staircase, much as in a conventional house of the period, and this is where Schröder and Rietveld later ran their architectural office. The real surprise is upstairs, up a steep staircase of ten steps, where a member of staff is waiting. At the end, you come back down, head back to the Ticket Office to hand in the media player.

The upper floor and the sliding walls

The upper floor was declared an attic on the plans to satisfy the fire regulations, which let Rietveld and Schröder leave it almost entirely open. Sliding and revolving panels divide it when needed: fully open, it is one light-filled living space; fully closed, it becomes separate bedrooms, a bathroom and a living room, with many arrangements in between.

A member of staff waits upstairs to show how the panels and the famous corner window work. Ask them to demonstrate a feature rather than trying it yourself: most of what you see is still original and fragile, and nothing may be touched except the stair banister.

The multimedia tour and its languages

The multimedia tour is included with every ticket and is available in Dutch, English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin and Dutch Sign Language. Sound clips tell the story of the house through Rietveld and Schröder themselves.

The player has a built-in speaker, so no headset is needed, but you can plug in your own headphones with a mini-jack, and headphones are available on request. If you prefer your own phone, scan the QR code at the Ticket Office desk for the mobile version; all clips are also available as written text there. The Dutch Sign Language version runs on your own phone only.

House rules: slippers, hands and cameras

Slippers go over your shoes before you enter. Do not touch objects or lean on surfaces; the banister on the stairs is the one exception. Follow the guidance of the staff, who are there both to help and to protect the interior.

Photography for personal use is allowed as long as you don't use flash and don't make staff identifiable in your pictures without their permission. When you leave, return the media player to the Ticket Office and collect your things from the locker. If you would like to see how a particular feature works, a cupboard, a panel or a window, simply ask: staff are happy to demonstrate.

Accessibility

Because of its heritage status, no physical adjustments can be made to the house. There are thresholds at both the Ticket Office and the house, and the upper floor is reached only by a staircase of ten steps, the highest about 20 centimetres. Neither building is accessible for wheelchairs, mobility scooters or rollators, and there is no space for prams or pushchairs. There are no wheelchair-accessible toilets.

The museum does what it can in other ways: folding stools for anyone who prefers not to stand, EnChroma glasses for red-green colour blindness, regular tactile tours with a model of the building, and a free companion ticket, issued at the Ticket Office, for visitors who cannot visit independently. Service dogs in harness are welcome, though the stairs are steep. There is a disabled parking space at Gerrit Rietveldhof 55, about 80 metres away.

Getting there from Utrecht Centraal

The house is in Utrecht East, near the Wilhelminapark. From Utrecht Centraal take bus 8 towards Wilhelminapark and get off at De Hoogstraat; from there it is about a five-minute walk to Prins Hendriklaan. Cycling from the station takes about 15 minutes, and there are bike racks near the entrance.

If you drive, paid parking applies in the streets around the house, and there is a drop-off point on Prins Hendriklaan. Visitors with a European disability card can park free at Gerrit Rietveldhof 55, about 80 metres from the house. Whichever way you come, head for the Ticket Office at Prins Hendriklaan 50a, to the left of the house, rather than the front door.

Read the full guide: How to get tickets for the Rietveld Schröder House →

Coming from Amsterdam

Direct trains run from Amsterdam Centraal to Utrecht Centraal throughout the day and take about half an hour. Add the bus or bike ride and the walk, and allow roughly an hour door to door from central Amsterdam, more at busy times.

A slot between 11:40 and 12:20, or between 14:00 and 14:40, leaves room for a relaxed train out and time in Utrecht's old centre afterwards. If you have a fixed train home, remember that the visit itself takes 30 to 40 minutes after check-in. Trains back to Amsterdam run just as often, so an evening in Utrecht's old centre costs you nothing in flexibility.

Opening days, holidays and Friday evenings

The house opens Tuesday to Sunday and is closed every Monday. It is also closed on New Year's Day, King's Day (27 April) and Christmas Day, but open on Easter Monday, Whit Monday and Boxing Day. From the first Friday in May to the last Friday in August it stays open on Friday evenings until 21:00.

If a date shows no availability, the museum gives three reasons: the house is closed, the slots are sold out, or an event is taking place that day. Tickets only go on sale three months ahead, so a date further out than that simply has not opened yet.

Before or after: the shop, the garden café and the Centraal Museum

The museum shop beside the Ticket Office stocks books, postcards and design objects, and Ukiyo Coffee serves from the garden behind the house. Across the street stands the apartment block on Erasmuslaan that Schröder and Rietveld designed together in the early 1930s; you can look at it from outside.

In the city centre, the Centraal Museum at Agnietenstraat 1 holds the largest Rietveld collection in the world, more than 250 pieces of furniture and other objects, and its permanent collection always includes chairs, drawings and models by Rietveld. It opens Tuesday to Sunday, 11:00 to 17:00, and needs a separate ticket.

Frequently asked questions