International style, in architecture
International style, in architecture, the phase of the modern movement that emerged in Europe and the United States during the 1920s. The term was first used by Philip Johnson Johnson, Philip Cortelyou, 1906–2005, American architect, museum curator, and historian, b. Cleveland, grad. Harvard Univ. (B.A., 1927). One of the first Americans to study modern European architecture, Johnson wrote (with H.-R...... Click the link for more information. in connection with a 1932 architectural exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City. Architects working in the International style gave new emphasis to the expression of structure, the lightening of mass, and the enclosure of dynamic spaces. Important examples include the Bauhaus Bauhaus , school of art and architecture in Germany. The Bauhaus revolutionized art training by combining the teaching of the pure arts with the study of crafts.
..... Click the link for more information. at Dessau, Germany, by Walter Gropius Gropius, Walter , 1883–1969, German-American architect, one of the leaders of modern functional architecture. In Germany his Fagus factory buildings (1910–11) at Alfeld, with their glass walls, metal spandrels, and discerning use of purely industrial
..... Click the link for more information. (1925–26) and the Villa Savoye, Poissy-sur-Seine, France, by Le Corbusier Le Corbusier , pseud. of Charles Édouard Jeanneret , 1887–1965, French architect, b. La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. Often known simply as "Corbu," he was one of the most influential architects of the 20th cent.
..... Click the link for more information. (1929–30).
Bibliography
See H.-R. Hitchcock and P. Johnson, The International Style (1932, repr. 1966).
International style, in painting
International style, in painting: see Gothic architecture and art Gothic architecture and art, structures (largely cathedrals and churches) and works of art first created in France in the 12th cent. that spread throughout Western Europe through the 15th cent., and in some locations into the 16th cent...... Click the link for more information. .
International Style
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Savoye House, Poissy, Fr., an International Style residence by Le Corbusier, 1929–30
(credit: Pierre Belzeaux—Rapho/Photo Researchers)
International Style, Modernism
a 20th-century architectural style characterized by undecorated rectilinear forms and the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete
International style
An architectural style that is minimalist in concept, devoid of regional characteristics, stresses functionalism, and rejects all nonessential decorative elements; it emphasizes the horizontal aspects of a building; developed during the 1920s and 1930s, in western Europe principally in the Bauhaus school, and also in America. Buildings in this style are usually characterized by simple geometric forms, often rectilinear, making use of reinforced concrete and steel construction with a nonstructural skin; occasionally, cylindrical surfaces; unadorned, smooth wall surfaces, typically of glass, steel, or stucco painted white; a complete absence of ornamentation and decoration; often, an entire blank wall; often a cantilevered upper floor or balcony; open interior spaces; a flat roof without a ledge; eaves that terminate at the plane of the wall; large areas of floor-to-ceiling glass or curtain walls of glass; metal window frames set flush with the exterior walls, often in horizontal bands; casement windows; sliding windows; glass-to-glass joints at the corners, without framing; plain doors that conspicuously lack decor rative detailing. Houses are commonly asymmetric; in contrast, commercial buildings in this style are not only symmetric, but appear as a series of repetitive elements.
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