Mar. 20 The International Style

The Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany, designed in 1925 by Walter Gropius, is testament to the power of architectural education. Although it lasted only 14 years, it changed the direction of architecture in the twentieth century. The curriculum, with its close ties to German socialism, emphasized the relationship between the arts and professed a broad definition of art; its fundamental premise was that all types of design problems could be solved using a single method, founded on the "truths of experimental science." The minimalist architecture of the school building became an emblem for the machine age.

The new Modernist aesthetic spread throughout the world, disseminated by teachers and students. Examples are the Barcelona pavilion by Mies van der Rohe, 1929 and the Tugendhat house, in Brno, Czechoslovakia. The direction of influence is difficult to determine; Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie houses were published in Berlin in 1910; a group of artists and architects in Holland were also working on Modern spatial effects in the 1920s, such as the Schroder house by Rietveld, 1925. Alvar Aalto was designing Modern buildings in Finland, such as the tuberculosis sanatorium at Paimio, 1929-33. The International Style was named in 1932 by the Museum of Modern Art in New York with an exhibition and book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson. The Bauhaus was dissolved by the Nazis in 1933 and many of the architects moved to the United States.

Richard Neutra's Lovell Health House of 1927 in Los Angeles is one of the first North American manifestations of the International Style. Many examples of the style in the U.S., such as Philip Johnson's own house in New Canaan, Ct., are evidence of a major change in the "function" of Modernism--from a style with a clear political mandate to an aesthetic movement.

Prof. Adams provides these slides immediately following each lecture as a courtesy to students for study purposes only. She takes no responsibility for their arrangement on this page or for any unintended use of the images.

1a) 1b)

2a) 2b)

3a) 3b)

4a) 4b)

5a) 5b)

6a) 6b)

7a) 7b)

8a) 8b)

9a) 9b)

10a) 10b)

11a) 11b)

12a) 12b)

13a) 13b)

14a) 14b)

15a) 15b)

16a) 16b)

17a) 17b)

18a) 18b)

19a) 19b)