International Style FURNITURE ................Illustrated Architecture Dictionary.................Styles of Architecture
International Style
1920-1945
A style of architecture applied to residences and public buildings that is minimalist in concept, is devoid of regional characteristics, stresses functionalism, and rejects all nonessential decorative elements; typically this style emphasizes the horizontal aspects of a building.
Coined by the architect Walter Gropius (1883-1969), Bauhaus combines the root of the German verb bauen (to build) with haus (house). It is the name given to the art school founded by Gropius under the original title of the "Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar." The Bauhaus lasted from 1919-1933. (School building photo)
Bauhaus in the US
Bauhaus principles flourished in America particularly as a result of a highly successful exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City entitled International Style: Architecture in 1932 and a book entitled The International Style-Architecture since 1922 by Henry-Russell Hitchcock (1903-1987) and Philip Johnson (1906- ).
Outstanding early examples in America of the International style include the buildings on the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology (1939-1956) in Chicago, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969). Example: Crown Hall
HousesIn the decades separating World Wars I and II, Americans tended to prefer period houses that reflected past traditions, while European architects emphasized radically new designs that came to be known as International style architecture. Le Corbusier had stressed the idea of the house as a "machine for living."
During the 1930s these ideas were introduced into the United States by several distinguished practitioners, like Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe, Richard Neutra and Marcel Breurer who emigrated to escape the developing chaos in Europe.
Defining features:
- Simple geometric forms, often rectilinear
- Asymmetrical
- Form characterized by a series of volumes
- Reinforced-concrete and steel construction with a nonstructural skin
- Occasionally, cylindrical surfaces
- Unadorned, smooth wall surfaces, typically of glass,steel, or stucco painted white
- Complete absence of ornamentation and decoration; often, an entire blank wall
- Often, a cantilevered upper floor or balcony
- Houses in this style are characterized by open interior spaces and are commonly asymmetrical
- Commercial buildings are not only symmetrical but appear as a series of repetitive elements
- Flat roof, without a ledge, eaves, or coping, that terminates 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
- Doorway treatments conspicuously plain, lacking decorative detailing
- Source: "American Architecture: An Illustrated Encyclopedia," Cyril M. Harris, ed.. Norton & Co., 1998
Furniture
Examples from Buffalo architecture:
- AM&A's Department Store
- M. Wile Factory Daylight Factory substyle
- Larkin Co. Terminal Warehouse Daylight Factory substyle
- Knox Addition, Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Other examples:
- Illustration above: Villa Tugendhat, by Mies van der Rohe - Hofmobileliendepot Imperial Furniture Collection,Vienna, Austria On display in 2005
- Villa Tugendhat, by Mies van der Rohe (Great Buildings)
- The Seagram Building, by Mies van der Rohe (Great Buildings)
- The Farnsworth House, by Mies van der Rohe (Great Buildings)
- Philip Johnson's Glass House (Great Buildings)
- Garden Grove Church, by Philip Johnson (Great Buildings)
- United Nations Headquarters, by Le Corbusier (Great Buildings)
- Kaufmann Desert House, by Richard Neutra (Great Buildings)
- The Lovell House, by Richard Neutra (Great Buildings)
