Leading International Style of Architects

• Pioneer practitioners of the International Style included a group of brilliant and original architects in the 1920s who went on to achieve enormous influence in their field. 

• These figures included Walter Gropius (1883-1969) in Germany, J.J.P. Oud (1890-1963) in Holland, Le Corbusier (1887-1965) in France, and Richard Neutra (1892-1970), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886- 1969), and Philip Johnson (1906-2005) in the United States.

International Style

Leading International Style Architects are:

Walter Gropius - Walter Gropius was the founder of the renowned Bauhaus design school in Weimar, Dessau and Berlin. He emigrated to America in 1937, where he became Head of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, and set up a partnership known as The Architects' Collaborative (TAC). 

Important examples of his International Style architecture were: the Fagus Factory (1911-25) in Alfeld on the Leine; the model factory for the Deutscher Werkbund Exhibition at Cologne in 1914; the Bauhaus School building (1925) at Dessau; the Graduate Center (1950) at Harvard University; and the Pan Am Building (1963) in New York, all of which reflect his preference for uncluttered interior spaces.

Walter Gropius

J.J.P Oud - Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud, cofounder of the De Stijl movement with Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931), helped to bring more rounded and flowing geometric shapes to the movement. 

As the housing architect in Rotterdam, he designed numerous apartment blocks with a sober but functional austerity. Later examples of his elegant and geometrical International Style included the Bio- Children's Convalescent Home (1960) near Arnhem.

Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud

Le Corbusier - Le Corbusier (Charles Edouard Jeanneret), one of the greatest architects of the 20th century, simplified architecture down to its main functional  features: window, ramp, stair and column. 

He was also especially concerned to maximize the entry of light into a building by replacing load-bearing walls in its facade. His somewhat utopian designs, often characterized by the heavy use of reinforced pre-cast concrete, paved the way for Brutalism, a superfunctional style of urban and campus architecture which has not aged well. 

Among his best-known works in the International Style is the Villa Savoye (1929-30) Poissy-sur-Seine, France; the Semi-Detached House (1927) Weissenhofsiedlung, Stuttgart; and United 'Habitation (1958) Interbau Fair, Berlin.

Le Corbusier

Decline

• By the 1970s, the International Style was so dominant that innovation was dead. Mies continued to design beautiful buildings, but was copied everywhere. As the saying went: "You got off an airplane in the 1970s, and you didn't know where you were." As a result, many architects felt dissatisfied with the limitations and formulaic methodology of the International Style. 

• They wanted to design buildings with more individual character and with more decoration. Modernist International Style architecture had removed all traces of historical designs: now architects wanted them back. All this led to a revolt against modernism and a renewed exploration of how to create more innovative design and ornamentation. 

• As Postmodernism took hold, building designers began creating more imaginative structures that employed modern building materials and decorative features to produce a range of novel effects. By the late 1970s, modernism and the International Style were finished.

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❤Thank you❤

Writer: Pankaj Sonwane.

Bibliography:

 1) Photos and figures from google photos.

 2) Information from books.

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