International Style (architecture)

The International Style of architecture is a type of modern design that is characterized by smooth, clean lines and the use of glass, steel, and concrete as primary construction materials. It was the architectural style most commonly used in the building of many twentieth-century skyscrapers. For its more modern look, the International Style relies upon an almost complete lack of ornamentation found in such design styles as the Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance schools of architecture.

The International Style was among the preeminent forms of design aesthetics guiding mid-twentieth-century American architecture. It proved to be highly influential on both American architects and urban planners. In architecture, US designers experimented with the tenets of the International Style, eventually inspiring such movements as the bungalow, commercial, and prairie schools of design. In urban planning, the International Style played a major role in the development of American cities in the twentieth century. The ability to construct immense skyscrapers enabled planners to develop tight, commercial city centers that could house large numbers of people and businesses. In addition, it helped give American cities, particularly those on the East Coast and in the Midwest, their characteristic skylines that are often dominated by tall, smooth geometric buildings framed by steel and glass.

Brief History

The International Style's origins lie in the modernist push of 1920s European architecture. Early twentieth-century architects in France, Germany, and Holland felt increasingly confined by traditional styles that often used extensive ornamentation. They regarded this era of architecture as being dominated by designs that were a mix of many styles that made no contribution to the function of the building. Other factors drove the interest in fashioning new design aesthetics in this period as well. For instance, the development of new construction materials that enabled stronger, taller buildings helped to spur the imagination of architects, while booming urban populations required large numbers of densely populated buildings that necessitated different construction techniques.

These developments encouraged architects to avoid the time-consuming adornments that had characterized building styles of the nineteenth century in favor of more utilitarian and sleek styles that they felt represented modern humanity at the dawn of a new age of technological innovation. European architects responded by establishing a series of aesthetically linked art and architecture movements: the Dutch de Stijl (meaning "style") artistic movement sought to reduce art and construction to its base geometric forms; the German Bauhaus (meaning "construction house") school of art emphasized functionality and simplification of design; and the work of Swiss French architect Le Corbusier, who was a pioneer in modern urban planning. Le Corbusier in particular advocated for the creation of spaces that relied on such construction materials as reinforced concrete that could be used to line the insides of buildings, thereby allowing for smooth external facades.

In 1932, US architect Philip Johnson and historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock commissioned a show of 1920s and 1930s European and American buildings at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York—the museum's first such exhibit dedicated to architecture. Called the "Modern Architecture: International Exhibition" by Hitchcock and Johnson after its European origins, the exhibit was attended by thirty-three thousand people during its run. The exhibit proved popular enough to tour the United States and inspired the publication of Johnson and Hitchcock's essay "The International Style: Architecture Since 1922" (1932). The book gave the movement its name in the US and helped inspire a new modern architectural aesthetic.

The MoMA exhibit featured a number of well-regarded modernist architects from Europe and America. These included Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and J. J. P. Oud in Europe, and Richard Neutra and Frederick John Kiesler in the US. In the 1930s, several of these prominent architects, including Gropius and Mies van der Rohe, moved to North America to avoid the growing turbulence in Europe leading up to World War II. Mies van der Rohe became the director of the Armour Institute, guiding a new generation of American architects toward the modernist principles of the International Style. This group of architects, called the Second Chicago School of architecture, helped create the distinctively modernist-inspired skyline of Chicago, including the Lake Shore Drive Apartments, the Seagram Building, and the Inland Steel Building.

Between the 1950s and 1970s, the International Style became the dominant form of design for skyscrapers. Many of these buildings used a block-style metal and concrete frame over which a glass and steel curtain wall was draped. During this period, the easy utilitarianism of these buildings accounted more for their popularity than the revolutionary spirit that had begun the modernist architectural movement. Examples of International Style buildings from this era include the Sears Tower (renamed the Willis Tower in 2009) in Chicago and the United Nations buildings in New York.

By the 1970s, this style became increasingly regarded as overly bland, sterile, and uninspiring. Critics argued that overuse of the International Style had resulted in generic-appearing, box-like buildings that robbed city skylines of the character of earlier architectural movements. The innovation that had driven the International Style had been copied so much by this period that many architects rejected the lack of ornamentation that had defined the movement. The result was the rise of the postmodernist movement, which returned to the experimental roots that had first driven the International Style.

Overview

The International Style is a form of modern architecture characterized by the use of geometrical shapes rather than the external ornamentation of buildings. Its originators viewed the embrace of technological innovation as a reflection of modernist design and humankind's changing society. Their designs relied upon the creation of an internal skeleton composed of reinforced concrete and steel, over which a lightweight glass, plaster, and steel shell was placed. The International Style was used for skyscrapers, civic buildings, apartment blocks, and smaller homes.

Typically, the International Style would feature flat roofs, rounded corners, and large windows extending to stretch across an entire floor, allowing more light to enter the inside rooms. Since the weights of the structures were held by the steel and concrete frames, designers could take greater liberties with the internal design of rooms. This enabled them to place internal walls anywhere rather than having to use them to reinforce the building’s structural integrity. The result was unobstructed internal spaces that could be used for a number of functions. Unlike many regionalist types of architecture, these buildings could be built in various climates from the equator to the far north.

The International Style of Architecture continues to influence modern architectural designs. Modern construction continues to use steel, glass, and concrete to create minimalist aesthetics with simple geometric forms. Flat roofs and crisp lines are defining features of mid-century modern architecture. The functionality of International Style is also evident in twenty-first-century open-floor designs.

Bibliography

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