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The International Style is a major architectural style and movement that began in western Europe in the 1920s and dominated modern architecture until the 1970s.[1][2] It is defined by strict adherence to functional and utilitarian designs and construction methods, typically expressed through minimalism.[2][3] The style is characterized by modular and rectilinear forms, flat surfaces devoid of ornamentation and decoration, open and airy interiors that blend with the exterior, and the use of glass, steel, and concrete.[4][5]

International Style architecture
Lovell House in Los Angeles (1927–29), by Richard Neutra
Villa Savoye in Paris (1928–31), by Le Corbusier
Loews Philadelphia Hotel in Philadelphia (completed 1932), by George Howe and William Lescaze
Seagram Building in New York City (1955–58), by Mies van der Rohe
Paimio Sanatorium in Finland, (1929–1930) by Alvar Aalto
Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta (completed 1978), by Friedrich Silaban
Years active1920s–1970s
LocationWorldwide

The International Style is sometimes called rationalist architecture and the modern movement,[1][6][7][8] although the former is mostly used in English to refer specifically to either Italian rationalism or the style that developed in 1920s Europe more broadly.[9][10] In continental Europe, this and related styles are variably called Functionalism, Neue Sachlichkeit ("New Objectivity"), De Stijl ("The Style"), and Rationalism, all of which are contemporaneous movements and styles that share similar principles, origins, and proponents.[11]

Rooted in the modernism movement,[5] the International Style is closely related to "Modern architecture" and likewise reflects several intersecting developments in culture, politics, and technology in the early 20th century.[5] After being brought to the United States by European architects in the 1930s, it quickly became an "unofficial" North American style, particularly after World War II.[5] The International Style reached its height in the 1950s and 1960s, when it was widely adopted worldwide for its practicality and as a symbol of industry, progress, and modernity. The style remained the prevailing design philosophy for urban development and reconstruction into the 1970s, especially in the Western world.[4]

The International Style was one of the first architectural movements to receive critical renown and global popularity.[5] Regarded as the high point of modernist architecture, it is sometimes described as the "architecture of the modern movement" and credited with "single-handedly transforming the skylines of every major city in the world with its simple cubic forms".[5][12] The International Style's emphasis on transcending historical and cultural influences, while favoring utility and mass-production methods, made it uniquely versatile in its application; the style was ubiquitous in a wide range of purposes, ranging from social housing and governmental buildings to corporate parks and skyscrapers.

Nevertheless, these same qualities provoked negative reactions against the style as monotonous, austere, and incongruent with existing landscapes; these critiques are conveyed through various movements such as postmodernism, new classical architecture, and deconstructivism.[13]

Postmodern architecture was developed in the 1960s in reaction to the International Style, becoming dominant in the 1980s and 1990s.

Concept and definition

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The term "International Style" was first used in 1932 by the historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock and architect Philip Johnson to describe a movement among European architects in the 1920s that was distinguished by three key design principles: (1) "Architecture as volume – thin planes or surfaces create the building’s form, as opposed to a solid mass"; (2) "Regularity in the facade, as opposed to building symmetry"; and (3) "No applied ornament".[14]

 
Kiefhoek Worker's Housing project, now a Museum,Rotterdam, by Jacobus Oud (1930)

International style is an ambiguous term; the unity and integrity of this direction is deceptive. Its formal features were revealed differently in different countries. Despite the unconditional commonality, the international style has never been a single phenomenon.[15] However, International Style architecture demonstrates a unity of approach and general principles: lightweight structures, skeletal frames, new materials, a modular system, an open plan, and the use of simple geometric shapes.

The problem of the International Style is that it is not obvious what type of material the term should be applied to: at the same time, there are key monuments of the 20th century (Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye; Wright's Fallingwater House) and mass-produced architectural products of their time.[16] Here it is appropriate to talk about the use of recognizable formal techniques and the creation of a standard architectural product, rather than iconic objects.

Hitchcock and Johnson's 1932 MoMA exhibition catalog identified three principles of the style: volume of internal space (as opposed to mass and solidity), flexibility and regularity (liberation from classical symmetry). and the expulsion of applied ornamentation ('artificial accents').[17]

 
Cover of The International Style (1932, reprinted 1996) by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson

Common characteristics of the International Style include: a radical simplification of form, a rejection of superfluous ornamentation, bold repetition and embracement of sleek glass, steel and efficient concrete as preferred materials. Accents were found to be suitably derived from natural design irregularities, such as the position of doors and fire escapes, stair towers, ventilators and even electric signs.[17]

Further, the transparency of buildings, construction (called the honest expression of structure), and acceptance of industrialized mass-production techniques contributed to the international style's design philosophy. Finally, the machine aesthetic, and logical design decisions leading to support building function were used by the International architect to create buildings reaching beyond historicism. The ideals of the style are commonly summed up in three slogans: ornament is a crime, truth to materials, form follows function; and Le Corbusier's description: "A house is a machine to live in".[18][19]

International style is sometimes understood as a general term associated with such architectural phenomena as Brutalist architecture, constructivism, functionalism, and rationalism.

Phenomena similar in nature also existed in other artistic fields, for example in graphics, such as the International Typographic Style and Swiss Style.[20][21]

The Getty Research Institute defines it as "the style of architecture that emerged in The Netherlands, France, and Germany after World War I and spread throughout the world, becoming the dominant architectural style until the 1970s. The style is characterized by an emphasis on volume over mass, the use of lightweight, mass-produced, industrial materials, rejection of all ornament and colour, repetitive modular forms, and the use of flat surfaces, typically alternating with areas of glass."[22] Some researchers consider the International Style as one of the attempts to create an ideal and utilitarian form.[16]

Background

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Around the start of the 20th century, a number of architects around the world began developing new architectural solutions to integrate traditional precedents with new social demands and technological possibilities. The work of Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde in Brussels, Antoni Gaudí in Barcelona, Otto Wagner in Vienna and Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Glasgow, among many others, can be seen as a common struggle between old and new. These architects were not considered part of the International Style because they practiced in an "individualistic manner" and seen as the last representatives of Romanticism.

The International Style can be traced to buildings designed by a small group of modernists, the major figures of which include Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Jacobus Oud, Le Corbusier, Richard Neutra and Philip Johnson.[23]

The founder of the Bauhaus school, Walter Gropius, along with prominent Bauhaus instructor, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, became known for steel frame structures employing glass curtain walls.  One of the world's earliest modern buildings where this can be seen is a shoe factory designed by Gropius in 1911 in Alfeld, Germany, called the Fagus Works building. The first building built entirely on Bauhaus design principles was the concrete and steel Haus am Horn, built in 1923 in Weimar, Germany, designed by Georg Muche.[24] The Gropius-designed Bauhaus school building in Dessau, built 1925–26 and the Harvard Graduate Center (Cambridge, Massachusetts; 1949–50) also known as the Gropius Complex, exhibit clean lines[25] and a "concern for uncluttered interior spaces".[23]

Marcel Breuer, a recognized leader in Béton Brut (Brutalist) architecture and notable alumnus of the Bauhaus,[26] who also pioneered the use of plywood and tubular steel in furniture design,[27] and who after leaving the Bauhaus would later teach alongside Gropius at Harvard, is as well an important contributor to Modernism and the International Style.[28]

Prior to use of the term 'International Style', some American architects—such as Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Irving Gill—exemplified qualities of simplification, honesty and clarity.[29] Frank Lloyd Wright's Wasmuth Portfolio had been exhibited in Europe and influenced the work of European modernists, and his travels there probably influenced his own work, although he refused to be categorized with them. His buildings of the 1920s and 1930s clearly showed a change in the style of the architect, but in a different direction than the International Style.[29]

In Europe the modern movement in architecture had been called Functionalism or Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), L'Esprit Nouveau, or simply Modernism and was very much concerned with the coming together of a new architectural form and social reform, creating a more open and transparent society.[30]

 
The Weissenhof Estate, Stuttgart, Germany (1927)

The "International Style", as defined by Hitchcock and Johnson, had developed in 1920s Western Europe, shaped by the activities of the Dutch De Stijl movement, Le Corbusier, and the Deutscher Werkbund and the Bauhaus. Le Corbusier had embraced Taylorist and Fordist strategies adopted from American industrial models in order to reorganize society. He contributed to a new journal called L'Esprit Nouveau that advocated the use of modern industrial techniques and strategies to create a higher standard of living on all socio-economic levels. In 1927, one of the first and most defining manifestations of the International Style was the Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart, overseen by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It was enormously popular, with thousands of daily visitors.[31][32]

1932 MoMA exhibition

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Philip Johnson co-defined the International Style with Henry-Russell Hitchcock as a young college graduate, and later became one of its practitioners.

The exhibition Modern Architecture: International Exhibition ran from February 9 to March 23, 1932, at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), in the Heckscher Building at Fifth Avenue and 56th Street in New York.[33] Beyond a foyer and office, the exhibition was divided into six rooms: the "Modern Architects" section began in the entrance room, featuring a model of William Lescaze's Chrystie-Forsyth Street Housing Development in New York. From there visitors moved to the centrally placed Room A, featuring a model of a mid-rise housing development for Evanston, Illinois, by Chicago architect brothers Monroe Bengt Bowman and Irving Bowman,[34] as well as a model and photos of Walter Gropius's Bauhaus building in Dessau. In the largest exhibition space, Room C, were works by Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, J. J. P. Oud and Frank Lloyd Wright (including a project for a house on the Mesa in Denver, 1932). Room B was a section titled "Housing", presenting "the need for a new domestic environment" as it had been identified by historian and critic Lewis Mumford. In Room D were works by Raymond Hood (including "Apartment Tower in the Country" and the McGraw-Hill Building) and Richard Neutra. In Room E was a section titled "The extent of modern architecture", added at the last minute,[35] which included the works of thirty-seven modern architects from fifteen countries who were said to be influenced by the works of Europeans of the 1920s. Among these works was shown Alvar Aalto's Turun Sanomat newspaper offices building in Turku, Finland.

After a six-week run in New York City, the exhibition then toured the US – the first such "traveling-exhibition" of architecture in the US – for six years.[36]

Curators

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MoMA director Alfred H. Barr hired architectural historian and critic Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson[35] to curate the museum's first architectural exhibition. The three of them toured Europe together in 1929 and had also discussed Hitchcock's book about modern art. By December 1930, the first written proposal for an exhibition of the "new architecture" was set down, yet the first draft of the book was not complete until some months later.

Publications

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The 1932 exhibition led to two publications by Hitchcock and Johnson:

  • The exhibition catalog, "Modern Architecture: International Exhibition"[17]
  • The book, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922, published by W. W. Norton & Co. in 1932.
    • reprinted in 1997 by W. W. Norton & Company[37]

Previous to the 1932 exhibition and book, Hitchcock had concerned himself with the themes of modern architecture in his 1929 book Modern Architecture: Romanticism and Reintegration.

According to Terence Riley: "Ironically the (exhibition) catalogue, and to some extent, the book The International Style, published at the same time of the exhibition, have supplanted the actual historical event."[38]

Exemplary Uses of the International Style

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The following architects and buildings were selected by Hitchcock and Johnson for display at the exhibition Modern Architecture: International Exhibition:

Architect Building Location Date
Jacobus Oud Workers Houses (house blocks Kiefhoek) Netherlands  Rotterdam, The Netherlands 1924–1927
Otto Eisler Semi-detached Villa Czech Republic  Brno, Czech Republic 1926–1927
Walter Gropius Fagus Factory Germany  Alfeld, Germany 1911
Bauhaus School Germany  Dessau, Germany 1926
City Employment Office Germany  Dessau, Germany 1928
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Apartment House, Weissenhof Estate Germany  Stuttgart, Germany 1927
German pavilion at the Barcelona Expo Spain  Barcelona, Spain 1929
Villa Tugendhat Czech Republic  Brno, Czech Republic 1930
Le Corbusier Villa Stein France  Garches, France 1927
Villa Savoye France  Poissy, France 1930
Carlos de Beistegui Champs-Élysées Penthouse France  Paris, France 1931
Erich Mendelsohn Schocken Department Store Germany  Chemnitz, Germany 1928–1930
Frederick John Kiesler Film Guild Cinema United States  New York City, US 1929
Raymond Hood McGraw-Hill Building United States  New York City, US 1931
George Howe & William Lescaze Loews Philadelphia Hotel United States  Philadelphia, US 1932
Monroe Bengt Bowman & Irving Bowman Lux apartment block United States  Evanston, US 1931
Richard Neutra Lovell House United States  Los Angeles, US 1929
Otto Haesler Rothenberg Siedlung Germany  Kassel, Germany 1930
Karl Schneider Kunstverein Germany  Hamburg, Germany 1930
Alvar Aalto Turun Sanomat building Finland  Turku, Finland 1930

Notable omissions

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The exhibition excluded other contemporary styles that were exploring the boundaries of architecture at the time, including: Art Deco; German Expressionism, for instance the works of Hermann Finsterlin; and the organicist movement, popularized in the work of Antoni Gaudí. As a result of the 1932 exhibition, the principles of the International Style were endorsed, while other styles were classed less significant.

In 1922, the competition for the Tribune Tower and its famous second-place entry by Eliel Saarinen gave some indication of what was to come, though these works would not have been accepted by Hitchcock and Johnson as representing the "International Style". Similarly, Johnson, writing about Joseph Urban's recently completed New School for Social Research in New York, stated: "In the New School we have an anomaly of a building supposed to be in a style of architecture based on the development of the plan from function and facade from plan but which is a formally and pretentiously conceived as a Renaissance palace. Urban's admiration for the New Style is more complete than his understanding."[35]

California architect Rudolph Schindler's work was not a part of the exhibit, though Schindler had pleaded with Hitchcock and Johnson to be included.[39] Then, "[f]or more than 20 years, Schindler had intermittently launched a series of spirited, cantankerous exchanges with the museum."[40]

Before 1932

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Architect Building Location Date
Johannes Duiker and Bernard Bijvoet Zonnestraal Sanatorium Netherlands  Hilversum, Netherlands 1926–1928
Robert Mallet-Stevens houses on Rue Mallet-Stevens France  Paris, France 1927
Villa Cavrois France  Croix, France 1929
Eileen Gray E-1027 France  Cap Martin, France 1929
Alejandro Bustillo House of Victoria Ocampo Argentina  Buenos Aires, Argentina 1929
Alvar Aalto Paimio Sanatorium Finland  Turku, Finland 1930
Leendert van der Vlugt Van Nelle Factory Netherlands  Rotterdam, Netherlands 1926–1930
Joseph Emberton Royal Corinthian Yacht Club United Kingdom  Essex, England 1931

1932–1944

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The Glass Palace, Heerlen, Netherlands, Frits Peutz (1935).

The gradual rise of the Nazi regime in Weimar Germany in the 1930s, and the Nazis' rejection of modern architecture, meant that an entire generation of avant-gardist architects, many of them Jews, were forced out of continental Europe. Some, such as Mendelsohn, found shelter in England, while a considerable number of the Jewish architects made their way to Palestine, and others to the US. However, American anti-Communist politics after the war and Philip Johnson's influential rejection of functionalism have tended to mask the fact that many of the important architects, including contributors to the original Weissenhof project, fled to the Soviet Union. This group also tended to be far more concerned with functionalism and its social agenda. Bruno Taut, Mart Stam, the second Bauhaus director Hannes Meyer, Ernst May and other important figures of the International Style went to the Soviet Union in 1930 to undertake huge, ambitious, idealistic urban planning projects, building entire cities from scratch. In 1936, when Stalin ordered them out of the country, many of these architects became stateless and sought refuge elsewhere; for example, Ernst May moved to Kenya.[41]

 
Dizengoff Circle, White City, Tel Aviv, by Genia Averbuch, 1934

The White City of Tel Aviv is a collection of over 4,000 buildings built in the International Style in the 1930s. Many Jewish architects who had studied at the German Bauhaus school designed significant buildings here.[42] A large proportion of the buildings built in the International Style can be found in the area planned by Patrick Geddes, north of Tel Aviv's main historical commercial center.[43] In 1994, UNESCO proclaimed the White City a World Heritage Site, describing the city as "a synthesis of outstanding significance of the various trends of the Modern Movement in architecture and town planning in the early part of the 20th century".[44] In 1996, Tel Aviv's White City was listed as a World Monuments Fund endangered site.[45]

 
The Kavanagh Building in Buenos Aires, by Sánchez, Lagos & de la Torre (1936).

The residential area of Södra Ängby in western Stockholm, Sweden, blended an international or functionalist style with garden city ideals. Encompassing more than 500 buildings, most of them designed by Edvin Engström, it remains the largest coherent functionalist or "International Style" villa area in Sweden and possibly the world, still well-preserved more than a half-century after its construction in 1933–40 and protected as a national cultural heritage.

Zlín is a city in the Czech Republic which was in the 1930s completely reconstructed on principles of functionalism. In that time the city was a headquarters of Bata Shoes company and Tomáš Baťa initiated a complex reconstruction of the city which was inspired by functionalism and the Garden city movement. Tomas Bata Memorial is the most valuable monument of the Zlín functionalism. It is a modern paraphrase of the constructions of high gothic style period: the supporting system and colourful stained glass and the reinforced concrete skeleton and glass.

With the rise of Nazism, a number of key European modern architects fled to the US. When Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer fled Germany they both arrived at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, in an excellent position to extend their influence and promote the Bauhaus as the primary source of architectural modernism. When Mies fled in 1938, he first fled to England, but on emigrating to the US he went to Chicago, founded the Second School of Chicago at IIT and solidified his reputation as a prototypical modern architect.

Architect Building Location Date
Ove Arup Labworth Café United Kingdom  Essex, England 1932–1933
Jorge Kálnay Luna Park Argentina  Buenos Aires, Argentina 1932
Leendert van der Vlugt Sonneveld House Netherlands  Rotterdam, Netherlands 1932–1933
Carlos Ramos Radio Pavilion of the Oncology Institute Portugal  Lisbon, Portugal 1933
Hans Scharoun Schminke House Germany  Löbau, Germany 1933
Frits Peutz Glaspaleis Netherlands  Heerlen, Netherlands 1933
František Lydie Gahura Tomas Bata Memorial Czech Republic  Zlín, Czech Republic 1933
Oscar Stonorov and Alfred Kastner Carl Mackley Houses United States  Philadelphia, US 1933–1934
Edvin Engström Södra Ängby Sweden  Stockholm, Sweden 1933–1939
Genia Averbuch Dizengoff Square Israel  Tel Aviv, Israel 1934–1938
Dov Karmi Max-Liebling House Israel  Tel Aviv, Israel 1936
Yehuda Lulka Thermometer House Israel  Tel Aviv, Israel 1935
Erich Mendelsohn Weizmann House Israel  Rehovot, Israel 1936
Wells Coates Isokon building United Kingdom  London, England 1934
Berthold Lubetkin Highpoint I United Kingdom  London, England 1935
Maxwell Fry Sun House United Kingdom  London, England 1935
Neil & Hurd Ravelston Garden United Kingdom  Edinburgh, Scotland 1936
Sánchez, Lagos & de la Torre Kavanagh Building Argentina  Buenos Aires, Argentina 1936
Paul Thiry Thiry House[46] United States  Seattle, Washington, US 1936
Walter Gropius Gropius House United States  Lincoln, Massachusetts, US 1937–1938
Hamilton Beatty and Allen Strang Willard and Fern Tompkins House United States  Monona, Wisconsin, US 1937
William Ganster and William Pereira Lake County Tuberculosis Sanatorium United States  Waukegan, Illinois, US 1938–1939

1945–present

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Seagram Building, New York, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1958)
 
Tower C of Place de Ville

After World War II, the International Style matured; Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum (later renamed HOK) and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) perfected the corporate practice, and it became the dominant approach for decades in the US and Canada. Beginning with the initial technical and formal inventions of 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments in Chicago, its most famous examples include the United Nations headquarters, the Lever House, the Seagram Building in New York City, and the campus of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as well as the Toronto-Dominion Centre in Toronto. Further examples can be found in mid-century institutional buildings throughout North America and the "corporate architecture" spread from there, especially to Europe.

In Canada, this period coincided with a major building boom and few restrictions on massive building projects. International Style skyscrapers came to dominate many of Canada's major cities, especially Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton, and Toronto. While these glass boxes were at first unique and interesting, the idea was soon repeated to the point of ubiquity. A typical example is the development of so-called Place de Ville, a conglomeration of three glass skyscrapers in downtown Ottawa, where the plans of the property developer Robert Campeau in the mid-1960s and early 1970s—in the words of historian Robert W. Collier, were "forceful and abrasive[;] he was not well-loved at City Hall"—had no regard for existing city plans, and "built with contempt for the existing city and for city responsibilities in the key areas of transportation and land use".[47] Architects attempted to put new twists into such towers, such as the Toronto City Hall by Finnish architect Viljo Revell. By the late 1970s a backlash was under way against modernism—prominent anti-modernists such as Jane Jacobs and George Baird were partly based in Toronto.

The typical International Style or "corporate architecture" high-rise usually consists of the following:

  1. Square or rectangular footprint
  2. Simple cubic "extruded rectangle" form
  3. Windows running in broken horizontal rows forming a grid
  4. All facade angles are 90 degrees.[citation needed]

In 2000 UNESCO proclaimed University City of Caracas in Caracas, Venezuela, as a World Heritage Site, describing it as "a masterpiece of modern city planning, architecture and art, created by the Venezuelan architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva and a group of distinguished avant-garde artists".[citation needed]

In June 2007 UNESCO proclaimed Ciudad Universitaria of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), in Mexico City, a World Heritage Site due to its relevance and contribution in terms of international style movement. It was designed in the late 1940s and built in the mid-1950s based upon a masterplan created by architect Enrique del Moral. His original idea was enriched by other students, teachers, and diverse professionals of several disciplines. The university houses murals by Diego Rivera, Juan O'Gorman and others. The university also features Olympic Stadium (1968). In his first years of practice, Pritzker Prize winner and Mexican architect Luis Barragán designed buildings in the International Style. But later he evolved to a more traditional local architecture. Other notable Mexican architects of the International Style or modern period are Carlos Obregón Santacilia, Augusto H. Alvarez, Mario Pani, Federico Mariscal [es], Vladimir Kaspé, Enrique del Moral, Juan Sordo Madaleno, Max Cetto, among many others.

In Brazil Oscar Niemeyer proposed a more organic and sensual[48] International Style. He designed the political landmarks (headquarters of the three state powers) of the new, planned capital Brasilia. The masterplan for the city was proposed by Lúcio Costa.

Architect Building Location Date
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Illinois Institute of Technology campus (including S. R. Crown Hall) United States  Chicago, US 1945–1960
860–880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments United States  Chicago, US 1949
Pietro Belluschi Commonwealth Building United States  Portland, Oregon, US 1948
Oscar Niemeyer, Le Corbusier, Harrison & Abramovitz Headquarters of the United Nations United States  New York City, US 1950s
Michael Scott Busaras Republic of Ireland  Dublin, Ireland 1945–1953
Kemp, Bunch & Jackson Eight Forty One United States  Jacksonville, US 1955
Ron Phillips and Alan Fitch City Hall, Hong Kong Hong Kong  Victoria City, Hong Kong 1956
Alberto Belgrano Blanco, José A. Hortal and Marcelo Martínez de Hoz Alas Building Argentina  Buenos Aires, Argentina 1957
John Bland Old City Hall Canada  Ottawa, Canada 1958
Emery Roth & Sons 10 Lafayette Square United States  Buffalo, New York, US 1958–1959
Kelly & Gruzen High School of Graphic Communication Arts United States  Manhattan, New York City, US 1959
Arne Jacobsen SAS Royal Hotel Denmark  Copenhagen, Denmark 1958–60
Stanley Roscoe Hamilton City Hall Canada  Hamilton, Canada 1960
John Lautner Chemosphere United States  Los Angeles, US 1960
Carlos Arguelles Philamlife Building Philippines  Manila, Philippines 1961
I. M. Pei Place Ville-Marie Canada  Montreal, Canada 1962
Charles Luckman Prudential Tower United States  Boston, US 1964
George Dahl First National Bank Tower United States  Dallas, US 1965
Abugov & Sunderland CN Tower Canada  Edmonton, Canada 1966
Various architects Montreal Metro, initial network Canada  Montreal, Canada 1966
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Toronto-Dominion Centre Canada  Toronto, Canada 1967
Westmount Square Canada  Montreal, Canada 1967
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Equitable Building United States  Atlanta, US 1968
Hermann Henselmann et al. Berlin TV Tower Germany  Berlin, Germany 1969
Michael Manser Capel Manor House United Kingdom  Horsmonden, UK 1971
Campeau Corporation Place de Ville Canada  Ottawa, Canada 1967–1972
Arthur C.F. Lau Stelco Tower Canada  Hamilton, Canada 1973
Crang & Boake Hudson's Bay Centre Canada  Toronto, Canada 1974
Jerzy Skrzypczak Chałubińskiego 8 Poland  Warsaw, Poland 1975–1978
Friedrich Silaban Borobudur Hotel

Indonesia  Jakarta, Indonesia

1974
Istiqlal Mosque Indonesia  Jakarta, Indonesia 1978
Pedro Moctezuma Díaz Infante Torre Ejecutiva Pemex Mexico  Mexico City, Mexico 1982

Criticism

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In 1930, Frank Lloyd Wright wrote: "Human houses should not be like boxes, blazing in the sun, nor should we outrage the Machine by trying to make dwelling-places too complementary to Machinery."[49]

In Elizabeth Gordon's well-known 1953 essay, "The Threat to the Next America", she criticized the style as non-practical, citing many instances where "glass houses" are too hot in summer and too cold in winter, empty, take away private space, lack beauty and generally are not livable. Moreover, she accused this style's proponents of taking away a sense of beauty from people and thus covertly pushing for a totalitarian society.[50]

In 1966, architect Robert Venturi published Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture,[51] essentially a book-length critique of the International Style. Architectural historian Vincent Scully regarded Venturi's book as 'probably the most important writing on the making of architecture since Le Corbusier's Vers une Architecture.[52] It helped to define postmodernism.

Best-selling American author Tom Wolfe wrote a book-length critique, From Bauhaus to Our House, portraying the style as elitist.

One of the supposed strengths of the International Style has been said to be that the design solutions were indifferent to location, site, and climate; the solutions were supposed to be universally applicable; the style made no reference to local history or national vernacular. This was soon identified as one of the style's primary weaknesses.[53]

In 2006, Hugh Pearman, the British architectural critic of The Times, observed that those using the style today are simply "another species of revivalist", noting the irony.[54] The negative reaction to internationalist modernism has been linked to public antipathy to overall development.[55][56]

In the preface to the fourth edition of his book Modern Architecture: A Critical History (2007), Kenneth Frampton argued that there had been a "disturbing Eurocentric bias" in histories of modern architecture. This "Eurocentrism" included the US.[57]

Architects

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Khan, Hasan-Uddin (2009). El Estilo Internacional (in Spanish). Köln: Taschen. pp. 7–11. ISBN 9783836510530.
  2. ^ a b "International Style | Definition, History, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  3. ^ "International Style 1930 – 1950 | PHMC > Pennsylvania Architectural Field Guide". www.phmc.state.pa.us. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  4. ^ a b "International Style | Definition, History, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2024-08-08.
  5. ^ a b c d e f "International Style – Overview". The Art Story. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  6. ^ Turner, Jane (1996). The Dictionary of Art. 26 Raphon to Rome, ancient, §II: Architecture. London: Grove. p. 14. ISBN 1-884446-00-0.
  7. ^ Poletti, Federico (2006). El siglo XX. Vanguardias (in Spanish). Milan: Electa. p. 101. ISBN 84-8156-404-4.
  8. ^ Baldellou, Miguel Ángel; Capitel, Antón (1995). Summa Artis XL: Arquitectura española del siglo XX (in Spanish). Madrid: Espasa Calpe. p. 13. ISBN 84-239-5482-X.
  9. ^ Frampton, Kenneth (2007). Modern Architecture: A Critical History. New York: Thames & Hudson. p. 203. ISBN 9780500203958.
  10. ^ Bussagli, Marco (2009). Atlas ilustrado de la arquitectura (in Spanish). Madrid: Susaeta. p. 176. ISBN 978-84-305-4483-7.
  11. ^ "International Style – Overview". The Art Story. Retrieved 2024-08-13.
  12. ^ Tate. "International style". Tate. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  13. ^ "International Style – Overview". The Art Story. Retrieved 2024-08-13.
  14. ^ "International Style". www.architecture.org. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  15. ^ Frampton K. Modern Architecture: A Critical History. London: Thames and Hudson, 1980.
  16. ^ a b Vasileva E. (2016) Ideal and utilitarian in the international style system: subject and object in the design concept of the 20th century // International Journal of Cultural Research, 4 (25), 72–80.
  17. ^ a b c Hitchcock, Henry-Russell; Johnson, Philip (1932). Modern Architecture: International Exhibition (PDF). Museum of Modern Art.
  18. ^ Evenson, Norma (1969). Le Corbusier: The Machine and the Grand Design. New York: George Braziller. p. 7.
  19. ^ Le Corbusier, Vers une architecture (Towards an Architecture) (frequently mistranslated as "Towards a New Architecture"), 1923
  20. ^ Hollis R. Swiss Graphic Design: The Origins and Growth of an International Style, 1920–1965. New Haven: Yale University Press: 2001.
  21. ^ Vasileva E. (2021) The Swiss Style: It's Prototypes, Origins and the Regulation Problem // Terra Artis. Arts and Design, 3, 84–101.
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Further reading

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