Title: International Style - Overview | TheArtStory
Headings: The International Style
The International Style
The International Style
Summary of The International Style
Key Ideas & Accomplishments
Overview of The International Style
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Important Art and Artists of The International Style
Bauhaus, Dessau, Germany (1925-26)
Artist: Walter Gropius
Villa Savoye, Poissy-sur-Seine, France (1929-31)
German Pavilion, Barcelona, Spain (1929)
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Summary of The International Style
Today when people speak of the "architecture of the modern movement," they are usually referring to the International Style - especially the gleaming steel, glass, and concrete forms of its most famous buildings. More of a movement than a mere aesthetic, the International Style emerged in Europe partly as a response to the cataclysm of World War I and related events. Its use in postwar housing gave it renown as a symbol of social and industrial progress, and not surprisingly, the International Style often resonated with leftist political groups. In the face of opposition from totalitarian regimes in the 1930s, many of the International Style's European proponents resettled in the United States, where economic expansion after World War II allowed it to flourish, particularly in skyscraper construction. This, along with the growth of rapid postwar intercontinental communication, allowed it to become a truly global architecture. But the inability of the International Style's supporters to solve social problems as its founders had hoped, coupled with its rigid formal monotony, prompted many architects in the 1960s to seek new design directions that reflected an increasingly diverse, commercialized, and post-industrial society. While few architects today call themselves adherents of the International Style, an equally small number would say it has not in some way influenced their work. Key Ideas & Accomplishments
The International Style is often thought of as the "architecture of the machine age," which symbolized for many the crystallization of modernism in building design. This became particularly true after World War II, when the postwar economic building boom made the International Style a kind of "unofficial" American architecture. Often called "minimalist" architecture, International Style buildings are well-known for the way they seem to strip away all extraneous ornament from the structure, leading to an extreme blurring of interior and exterior space, the exposure of buildings' construction with unvarnished honesty, and the glorification of modern industrial materials: