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THEORY OF DESIGN
LECTURE 7
INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE
The International
Style
 The scope of Bauhaus efforts included architecture, visual art, interior design, graphic
design, and industrial design (product design). It should be noted that while Bauhaus
designers generally embraced the aesthetic theory of functionalism, deliberate use of
this theory (or even familiarity with it) is not a prerequisite to designing works that
feature the modern aesthetic. Thus, for any given modern-style building or object, the
designer may or may not have had functionalism in mind.
The modern aesthetic reached maturity when excess material (including traditional
ornamentation) had been stripped away, leaving only a basic structure of plain
geometric forms. As noted above, this maturation was achieved in the early twentieth
century, with the Bauhaus leading the way (in terms of both innovation and
propagation). Architecture that features the mature modern aesthetic is known as
international style architecture, due to the rapid global diffusion of this style once it
emerged.
The international styles three most influential pioneers were Gropius,
Corbusier, and Mies. Walter Gropius, founder and first director of the
Bauhaus, designed the buildings of the schools second campus. Plain walls
(white and grey) and screens of glass, sometimes several stories in height,
predominate. Gropius balconies showcase an impressive new structural
possibility of steel-frame construction: cantilevering (platforms fixed only at
one end), which further contributes to a sense of architectural
weightlessness.
The 5 points of Architecture in the Villa Savoye:
1.Ribbon Window, 2.Roof gardens, 3.Pilotis, 4.free plan,5.free
facade

The Swiss architect Le Corbusier, though not a member of the Bauhaus, absorbed and
became a leading figure of the international style. He preferred smooth expanses of white
reinforced concrete pierced with horizontal strip windows, as well as a degree of
curvilinear geometry . Le Corbusiers masterpiece is the Villa Savoye.
 The Seagram Building The Lakeshore Drive Apartments-
Chicago

While Gropius and Le Corbusier made ample use of reinforced concrete, pure glass-
and-steel construction in the international style was perfected by Mies van der Rohe
(another director of the Bauhaus), who believed so firmly in eliminating all
embellishment that his guiding principle was simply less is more. Mies brought the
international style to the height of its influence, as descendants of his glass-and-steel
skyscrapers appeared in every corner of the globe. The Seagram Building in New York,
essentially a steel frame sheathed in curtains of glass, is often considered his
masterpiece. The Lake Shore drive apartments brought in a revolution in high-rise
residential lifestyle.
Contemporary with the Bauhaus age was the career of the greatest American
architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, who focused primarily on residential designs. Wright
sought to make his buildings organic; that is, to adjust their layouts and features until
they merge with their natural surroundings, rather than simply imposing a rectangular
box of a house on any given locale. Wright felt that a house should not be located on a
site, but rather be a natural extension of the site.The exterior walls of a Wright house
are articulated in a relatively complex, asymmetrical manner (so as to avoid a stiff,
boxy appearance), and the house is often visually united with the earth via broad,
flat surfaces parallel with the ground (e.g. eaves, cantilevered balconies). Interiors are
open and flowing (rather than mechanically subdivided into small rooms), and ample
windows (including windows that bend around corners) throughout the house merge
the interior with the world outside. A mixture of building materials (e.g. brick, wood,
stone, concrete) further contributes to the sense of the house as an organic feature of
the landscape.
Despite the contrast between
functionalism and Wrights organicism,
both are clearly modern (i.e. not based on
anything traditional), and consequently
similar in appearance to a significant
degree. Wright shared the functionalist
appreciation for simple geometry and
plain, unadorned surfaces, and he
embraced mass-produced building
materials. One could categorize Wrights
architecture as a branch of the
international style, or as a cousin.
Wrights first great works were his Prairie
Houses, built in the Midwest; best-known
among them is Robie House in Chicago.
His most famous building of all is
Fallingwater, Pennsylvania, while his
foremost urban work is the Guggenheim
Museum in New York.
 After The International Style
The piers read as pillars
Toward the end of the Late Modern
period, the international style
experienced two notable trends. One
was more extensive use of curvilinear
geometry (as illustrated by Wrights
Guggenheim Museum, as well as
Corbusiers later work). The other was
brutalism: a style that features harsh,
bulky concrete structures, often with
unfinished surfaces. These trends are
considered the transitional phase to
postmodern architecture, as architects
grew impatient with the severe
simplicity of the international style.

9
Le Corbusier: The International Style
Villa Savoye, 1929
Le Corbusier: Villa Savoye interior, 1929
Le Corbusier: Unit dHabitation, 1947-52
 Le Corbusier:
Unit dHabitation, 1947-52
Le Corbusier: Unit dHabitation, 1947-52
Philip Johnson: Glass House, 1949
 1928 formation of the Congres Internationaux dArchitecture
Moderne an international group of architects. There was a push
for building designs which could be truly international. Where
the ideas of the Bauhaus were concerned with social ideals, the
International Style eventually came to be associated with
Capitalism and the wealth of the Western world.

Alvar Aalto, (Finland 1898-1976) Tuberculosis Sanitarium Finland, 1929-33, an example of

International style.
Characteristics of the International Style:

Steel skeleton allowing flexibility with both positioning,

and materials used for walls;
No or minimal ornamentation;
Flat roof;
Created with the function of the building in mind;
Standardised, prefabricated parts.
No historicism that is, harking back to classical or
other styles.
The look is more abstract & simple.
 The International Style was striving towards:

Simplification, Honesty and Clarification

The ideals of the style can be summed up in four

slogans:

ornament is a crime truth to materials

form follows function machines for living
(Le Corbusier)
Identifying features/characteristics:

Concrete Bands of glass

Glass Balance and regularity
Steel (most common) Flat roof, without ledge
Occasionally reveals Often with thin, metal
skeleton frame mullions and smooth
construction spandrel panels
separating large, single-
Exposing its structure pane windows
Rejected non-essential
decoration
Ribbon windows
Corner windows
Access to new building technologies like
reinforced concrete , and steel framework for
building meant that designers could seek a
whole new approach to what is known as the
plan or the layout of the interiors of buildings.
The enormous strength of these new materials
opened new worlds for designers that were
unheard of in building before.
The typical International Style high-
rise usually consists of the following:

1. Square or rectangular footprint

2. Simple cubic "extruded rectangle" form
3. Windows running in broken horizontal rows
forming a grid
4. All facade angles are 90 degrees
 Glass Palace
(the Netherlands Frits Peutz) 1935
Ludwig Mies Van der
Rohe
Chicago, Illinois 1949
Ludwig Mies Van
der Rohe
Chicago, Illinois
1973