International style (architecture)

The International style was a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modernist architecture. The term had its origin from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson written to record the International Exhibition of Modern Architecture held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1932 which identified, categorized and expanded upon characteristics common to Modernism across the world.

As a result, the focus was more on the stylistic aspects of Modernism. Hitchcock’s and Johnson’s aims were to define a style of the time, which would encapsulate this modern architecture. They identified three different principles: the expression of volume rather than mass, balance rather than preconceived symmetry and the expulsion of applied ornament.

All the works which were displayed as part of the exhibition were carefully selected, as only works which strictly followed the set of rules were displayed. Previous uses of the term in the same context can be attributed to Walter Gropius in Internationale Architektur, and Ludwig Hilberseimer in Internationale neue Baukunst.

Although it was conceived as a movement that transcended style, the International Style was largely superseded in the era of Postmodern architecture that started in the 1960s. In 2006, Hugh Pearlman, the architectural critic of The Times, observed that those using the style today are simply "another species of revivalist," noting the irony.

Architects

• Alvar Aalto
• Welton Becket
• Le Corbusier
• Eileen Gray
• Walter Gropius
• Arne Jacobsen
• Philip Johnson
• Louis Kahn
• William Lescaze
• Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
• Richard Neutra
• Oscar Niemeyer
• Carlos Raul Villanueva
• Frits Peutz
• Ralph Rapson
• Gerrit Rietveld
• Arseniusz Romanowicz
• The Architects’ Collaborative
• Richard Kauffman
• Arieh Sharon
• Jerzy Sołtan
• Raphael Soriano
• Joseph Klarwein
• Eric Mendelsohn
• Joseph Emberton

Links

• International style (architecture) – Wikipedia

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