International Style
Architectural style that developed in Europe and the United States in the 1920s and ’30s and became the dominant tendency in Western architecture during the middle decades of the 20th century. The most common characteristics of International Style buildings are rectilinear forms; light, taut plane surfaces that have been completely stripped of applied ornamentation and decoration; open interior spaces; and a visually weightless quality engendered by the use of cantilever construction. Glass and steel, in combination with usually less visible reinforced concrete, are the characteristic materials of construction.
The International Style grew out of three phenomena that confronted architects in the late 19th century: (1) architects’ increasing dissatisfaction with the continued use of stylistically eclectic buildings—e.g., ones incorporating a mix of decorative elements from different architectural periods and styles that bore little or no relation to the building’s functions; (2) the economical creation of large numbers of office buildings and other commercial, residential, and civic structures that served a rapidly industrializing society; and (3) the development of new building technologies centring on the use of iron and steel, reinforced concrete, and glass. These three phenomena dictated the search for an honest, economical, and utilitarian architecture that would both use the new materials and satisfy society’s new building needs while still appealing to aesthetic taste.
Le Corbusier in the USA – The Carpenter Center in Harvard
The Carpenter Center in Harvard University is the only building on the North American continent designed by the famous architect Le Corbusier — one of the fathers of the modern movement (international style). Despite the controversy over the wisdom of placing a building of such modern design in a traditional location, Le Corbusier felt that [...]
