International Style

International Style

International style is an architectural style that developed in Europe and the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. This style became the dominant tendency for western architecture in the later twentieth century. Common characteristics of International style buildings are rectangular forms that have been completely stripped of applied ornamentation and decoration, visually weightless qualities, open interior spaces, and an overwhelming association with geometry. Glass, steel, and reinforced concrete are the characteristic materials of construction. The International style grew from three phenomena that architects had to deal with; An incorporating mix of decorative elements from different architectual periods that had little or no relation to the building’s functions, the development and use of iron, steel, glass, and reinforced concrete, and the economical creation of large numbers of office buildings. These three phenomena basically outlined the search for an economical utilitarian architecture, an architecture that would use the new materials and still appeal to aesthetic taste.

Technology was key in this transition from tradition. The availability of cheap mass-produced iron and steel ultimately rendered masonry construction obsolete. “The International Style was thus formed under the dictates that modern buildings’form and appearance should naturally grow out of and express the potentialities of their materials and structural engineering. A harmony between artistic expression, function, and technology would thus be established in an austere and disciplined new architecture.”

The International Style grew from a small group of brilliant and original architects who went on to achieve greatness in their field. The major figures include Walter Gropius, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe of Germany. Gropius and Mies were best known for their structures containing glass curtain walls spanning steel girders that would form the skeleton of the building.

Walter Gropius (1883-1969) was in 1919 appointed to director of the Grand Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts, Academy of Arts, and School of Arts which were immediately joined as the Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar (“Public Bauhaus Weimar”).

It was at this school that Gropius taught design principles. He saw architecture as ever changing, related to the contemporary world....

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...roblems. From the Greeks use of pillars for support and decoration (which have influenced architectural style since that time), to the medieval construction of castles (which saw the problems with masonry and brick solved). With the advent of steel and cast-iron a new architectural age became. With lighter, larger, and taller capabilities, the way our society looked, would never be the same. As American architects learned the principles of the new architecture, the name International Style was formed as a European-American hybrid. The name came in turn from a book called International Architecture by Walter Gropius. The underlying principles of the International style, sheerness, being plain, and flatness are filled with difficulties. Maintenance and weathering make it difficult to create an ideal, yet buildings that fit this description are seen in cities throughout the United States and world. “In postmodern architecture classical orders have been reintroduced as one of a number of contrasting design methods, so that the late 20th century architecture attempted to include historical references in its design and approach and was characterized by a new aesthetic pluralism.”