Both Rietveld and Schröder espoused progressive ideals that included "a fierce commitment to a new openness about relationships within their own families and to truth in their emotional lives.

Bourgeois notions of respectability and propriety, with their emphasis on discipline, hierarchy, and containment would be eliminated through architectural design that countered each of these aspects in a conscious and systematic way.

The living area upstairs, stated as being an attic to satisfy the fire regulations of the planning authorities, in fact forms a large open zone except for a separate toilet and a bathroom.

A sliding wall between the living area and the son's room blocks a cupboard as well as a light switch.

Even the windows are hinged so that they can only open 90 degrees to the wall, preserving strict design standards about intersecting planes, and further blurring the delineation of inside and out.

The window frames and doors were made from wood as well as the floors, which were supported by wooden beams.

The committee decided to apply criterion i and ii, and said about the house:[5] The Rietveld Schröderhuis in Utrecht is an icon of the Modern Movement in architecture and an outstanding expression of human creative genius in its purity of ideas and concepts as developed by the De Stijl movement.

(...) With its radical approach to design and the use of space, the Rietveld Schröderhuis occupies a seminal position in the development of architecture in the modern age.Only few years after construction of this building Polish architect Stanisław Brukalski built his own house[6] in Warsaw in 1929 likely inspired by Rietveld Schröderhuis which he visited.

His Polish example of modern house was awarded bronze medal in Paris expo in 1937.