The International Style

1
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)
2
The most important figures

• The big three
• Le Corbusier (France)
• Ludwig Mies van Rohe (Germany)
• Walter Gropius (Germany)

3
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.
4
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)
5
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

6
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

7
The most famous manifestations include

• United Nations Headquarters
• Completed 1952
• New York, NY
• Le Corbusier  

8
Seagram Building

• Completed 1957
• New York, NY (park avenue)
• Ludwig Mies van Der Rohe (and Phillip Johnson)  

9
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.
10
Glass Palace (the Netherlands Frits Peutz) 1935
11
Ludwig Mies Van der Rohewig Chicago, Illinois
1949
12
Ludwig Mies Van der Rohewig Chicago, Illinois 1973
13
Gropius House
Walter Gropius
14
(No Transcript)
15
The Farnsworth House
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
16
International Style glass house
Philip Johnson 1949