International Style (architecture)

International Style (architecture)

The International style is a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modern architecture. The term originated from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style. The book was written to record the International Exhibition of Modern Architecture held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1932 and it identified, categorized and expanded upon characteristics common to Modernism across the world and its stylistic aspects. The aim of Hitchcock and Johnson was to define a style that would encapsulate this modern architecture, and they did this by the inclusion of specific architects.

The authors identified three principles: the expression of volume rather than mass, the emphasis on balance rather than preconceived symmetry, and the expulsion of applied ornament. All the works in the exhibition were carefully selected, only displaying those that strictly followed these rules. Previous uses of the term in the same context can be attributed to Walter Gropius in Internationale Architektur, and Ludwig Hilberseimer in Internationale neue Baukunst.