The International Style

Major architectural style in Europe & USA

Began in the 1920s 19302 (1980s)
Term coined by Henry Russell Hitchcock
and Phillip Johnson

Philip Cortelyou Johnson

(1906-2005)

Henry-Russell Hitchcock (1903-1987)

The most important figures

The big three

Le Corbusier (France)
Ludwig Mies van Rohe (Germany)
Walter Gropius (Germany)
Nazis rejected the modern architecture forcing
an entire generation of architects out of Europe.
Mies fled to the USA in 1936 extending his
influence and promoting Bauhaus which later
became the primary source of architectural
modernism.
The International Style became the dominant
approach for decades.
The International Style was striving towards:

Simplification, Honesty and Clarification

The ideals of the style can be summed up in four

slogans:

ornament is a crime truth to materials

form follows function machines for living
(Le Corbusier)
 Identifying features/characteristics
Modern structural principles and material (commercial and institutional buildings rather
than housing)

Concrete
Glass
Steel (most common)
Occasionally reveals skeleton frame construction
Exposing its structure
Rejected non-essential decoration
Ribbon windows
Corner windows
Bands of glass
Balance and regularity
Flat roof, without ledge
Often with thin, metal mullions and smooth spandrel
panels separating large, single-pane windows
 The typical International Style 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
The most famous manifestations include:

United Nations Headquarters

Completed 1952
New York, NY
Le Corbusier
Seagram Building

Completed 1957
New York, NY (park
avenue)
Ludwig Mies van
Der Rohe (and
Phillip Johnson)
Access to new building technologies like
reinforced concrete , and steel framework
for building meant that designers could
seek a whole new approach to what is
known as the plan or the layout of the
interiors of buildings.
The enormous strength of these new
materials opened new worlds for designers
that were unheard of in building before.
 Glass Palace
(the Netherlands Frits Peutz) 1935
Ludwig Mies Van der
Rohewig
Chicago, Illinois 1949
Ludwig Mies Van der Rohewig
Chicago, Illinois 1973
Gropius House

Walter Gropius
The Farnsworth House

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

International Style glass house

Philip Johnson 1949