MOMA, 1932, AND THE INTERNATIONAL STYLE IN AMERICA

Two forms of architectural discourse which popularized the International Style in America

The International Style Formal manifestations

For further readingÉ

Museum of Modern Art, housed in the Heckscher Building, 730 Fifth Avenue, NYC The Heckscher Building (now Crown) was designed by Warren and Wetmore, the same architects who designed Grand Central Terminal.

ÔModern Architecture – International ExhibitionÕ @ The Museum of Modern Art, February 10 – March 23, 1932 The players: Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Philip Johnson, and Martha Barr (in Cortona, Italy in 1932) + Henry-Russell Hitchcock (in 1937)

Exhibition 15: Modern Architecture - International Exhibition @ The Museum of Modern Art 10 February - 23 March 1932 Intentions

Exhibition 15: Modern Architecture - International Exhibition @ The Museum of Modern Art 10 February - 23 March 1932 Intentions

Exhibition 15: Modern Architecture - International Exhibition @ The Museum of Modern Art 10 February - 23 March 1932 Installation view of Le CorbusierÕs exhibit

Exhibition 15: Modern Architecture - International Exhibition @ The Museum of Modern Art 10 February - 23 March 1932 Plan at the Heckscher Building, 730 Fifth Avenue, NYC (Reconstruction by T. Riley)

Exhibition 15: Modern Architecture - International Exhibition @ The Museum of Modern Art 10 February - 23 March 1932 An exhibition in 3 parts

Slide 12

Slide 13

Section 1: Modern Architects

Section 2: The Extent of Modern Architecture

Section 3: Housing

Exhibition 15: Modern Architecture - International Exhibition @ The Museum of Modern Art 10 February - 23 March 1932 Fine-arts paradigm (ÔGerman Painting and SculptureÕ exhibition, 12 March - 26 April, 1931) + View of ÔModern ArchitectureÕ installation with a chamfered corner; labels; low-level model; plans

Mies at the German Building exhibition, Berlin, 1931 Die Wohnung unserer Zeit (The Dwelling of our Time) In right foreground: MieÕs Exhibition House; view from opposite direction (foreground: Hugo HŠringÕs house)

Mies at the German Building exhibition, Berlin, 1931 Die Wohnung unserer Zeit (The Dwelling of our Time) MiesÕs Exhibition house, exterior and interior views: an example of open-plan design, continuous and interwoven

Philip JohnsonÕs review of Die Wohnung unserer Zeit (German Building Exhibition, Berlin, 1931)

Mies and Lilly Reich at the Deutsche Linoleum Werke exhibit, Die Wohnung (The Dwelling) Werkbund exhibition, Stuttgart, 1927 Reveals how space can be defined by more than architectural elements: through the use of materials (linoleum covered large space, shaping it through changes in colour)

Mies with Fritz SchŸler, Electric Utilities Pavilion, International Exposition, Barcelona, 1929 Interior covered with large-scale photographs depicting various aspects of the German power industry; gave illusion of 3D panorama, opening the space toward an imaginary horizon (novel wall treatment, rather than typical plaster cladding) * some photos even wrapped around corners to dissolve perception of a limited space large-scale images emulated a real view and transformed the boundaries of architecture

Exhibition 15: Modern Architecture - International Exhibition @ The Museum of Modern Art 10 February - 23 March 1932 Section 3: Housing (Model of Rothenberg Housing Development by Otto Haesler in Kassel, Germany, 1930)

Exhibition 15: Modern Architecture - International Exhibition @ The Museum of Modern Art 10 February - 23 March 1932 Catalogue

Exhibition 15: Modern Architecture - International Exhibition @ The Museum of Modern Art 10 February - 23 March 1932 Catalogue: monographic

Exhibition 15: Modern Architecture - International Exhibition @ The Museum of Modern Art 10 February - 23 March 1932 Travelling exhibition: Itinerary

Exhibition 15: Modern Architecture - International Exhibition @ The Museum of Modern Art 10 February - 23 March 1932 Travelling exhibition: Cleveland Museum of Art, 27 October - 5 December, 1932 View of Raymond HoodÕs skyscraper at right

Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Jr., and Philip Johnson, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922.  First edition (New York City: Norton, 1932)

Critical reading of Hitchcock and Johnson

From Hitchcock and Johnson, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 (pp.19-20)  a universal style?

From Hitchcock and Johnson, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 (pp.28) When did this new period emerge? Early 1920s

From Hitchcock and Johnson, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 (pp.20) The new principles of architecture

From Hitchcock and Johnson, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 Walter Gropius, Bauhaus School Workshops, Dessau, Germany, 1926

From Hitchcock and Johnson, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 J.J.P. Oud, WorkersÕ Houses, Hook of Holland, 1924-1927

From Hitchcock and Johnson, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 Le Corbusier & Pierre Jeanneret, Villa Savoye, Poissy-sur-Seine, 1930 (W. of Paris)

From Hitchcock and Johnson, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 Mies van der Rohe, German Pavilion at the Barcelona Exposition, Spain, 1929 (Inner pool)

From Hitchcock and Johnson, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 Howe & Lescaze, Philadelphia Saving Fund Society, 1931 and Hood & Fouilhoux, McGraw-Hill Building, New York City, 1931

From Hitchcock and Johnson, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 (pp.66-67) On American skyscrapers and verticality

From Hitchcock and Johnson, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 (pp.237-238) Architects represented in book

From Hitchcock and Johnson, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 (pp.239-240) Architects by national origin

From Hitchcock and Johnson, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 (pp.105-113)

Henry-Russell Hitchcock, ÒThe International Style Twenty Years After,Ó Architectural Record (August 1951) from From Hitchcock and Johnson, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 (1995 edition), p.260

Henry-Russell Hitchcock, ÒThe International Style Twenty Years After,Ó Architectural Record (August 1951) from From Hitchcock and Johnson, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 (1995 edition), pp.260-261

The Bauhaus in Dessau Germany (1925-26)

Walter Gropius (Germany, 1883 - U.S., 1969)

Walter Gropius, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus, 1936 (First American edition) Gropius had previously published Internationale Architektur in Germany in 1925

Walter Gropius, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus, 1936 Introduction: a personal treatise; breach with past

Walter Gropius, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus, 1936 The Bauhaus: Not a style

Walter Gropius, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus, 1936 Pedagogy

Walter Gropius, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus, 1936 The Bauhaus, Dessau: A corner of the WorkshopÕs Wing

Walter Gropius, Fagus Factory (Fagus Werk or Fagus Fabrik), in Alfeld on the Leine, 1911-1913 (with Adolf Meyer) Shoe factory

Gropius House in Lincoln, MA, 1937-Õ38 GropiusÕs first commission in the U.S. (now owned by Historic New England and open to public)

Gropius House in Lincoln, MA, 1937-Õ38 GropiusÕs first commission in the U.S. (now owned by Historic New England and open to public)

Walter Gropius, Harvard Graduate Center, Cambridge, MA, 1950 Concrete with brick exterior