MODERN ARCHITECTURE

modern architecture, new architectural style that emerged in many Western countries in the
decade after World War I. It was based on the "rational" use of modern materials, the principles
of functionalist planning, and the rejection of historical precedent and ornament. This style has
been generally designated as modern, although the labels International style, Neue
Sachlichkeit, and functionalism have also been used.
Since the mid-19th cent. there had been repeated attempts to assimilate modern technology in
practice and theory and to formulate a modern style of architecture suitable to its age. A
functionalist approach eventually replaced the formerly eclectic approach to design. Technical
progress in the use of iron and glass made possible the construction of Sir Joseph Paxton's
celebrated Crystal Palace in London (1851), in which a remarkable delicacy was achieved. In the
ensuing years iron, steel, and glass enabled architects and engineers to enclose the vast interior
spaces of train sheds, department stores, and market halls, but often the structural forms were
clothed with irrelevant ornament.
As late as 1889 the exposed, iron skeleton of the newly erected Eiffel Tower in Paris was met with
public outrage. In Chicago, William Le Baron Jenney pioneered the use of a complete steel
skeleton for the urban skyscraper in his Home Insurance Building (1883–85). His contemporary,
Louis Henry Sullivan, first articulated the theory of functionalism (see functionalism), which he
demonstrated in his numerous commercial designs. In addition, experiments in concrete
construction were being carried out in France by François Hennebique and Auguste Perret, and in
the United States by Ernest Ransome.
As a result of these advances, the formal conception of architecture was also undergoing a
profound transformation. Frank Lloyd Wright, a pupil of Sullivan, experimented with the
interpenetration of interior and exterior spaces in his residential designs. In Holland, where
Wright's work was widely admired, the architects of de Stijl sought to organize building elements
into new combinations of overlapping and hovering rectangular planes.

By 1920 there was an increasingly wide understanding that building forms must be determined by
their functions and materials if they were to achieve intrinsic significance or beauty in
contemporary terms, without resorting to traditional ornament. Instead of viewing a building as a
heavy mass made of ponderous materials, the leading innovators of modern architecture
considered it as a volume of space enclosed by light, thin curtain walls and resting on slender piers.
The visual aesthetic of modern architecture was largely inspired by the machine and by abstract
painting and sculpture. In giving form and coherence to modern architecture, Le Corbusier's
book Vers une architecture (1923, tr. 1927) played an important role, as did the writings of the
Dutch architect J. J. P. Oud and the German architect Walter Gropius, who also headed
the Bauhaus in Dessau. Other early leaders of the modern movement included Ludwig Mies van
der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, and Ernst May in Germany and Raymond Hood, Albert Kahn, Richard
J. Neutra, William Lescaze, and George Howe in the United States. In 1932 the label "International
style" was applied to modern architecture by the Museum of Modern Art, New York City,
anticipating its growing acceptance around the world. The United States became a stronghold of
modern architecture after the emigration of Gropius, Mies, and Breuer from Germany during the
1930s. By the mid-20th cent. modern architecture had become an effective instrument for dealing
with the increasingly complex building needs of a global society. Large architectural firms such
as Harrison and Abramovitz and Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill did much to popularize modern
architecture around the world after World War II. At the same time new technological
developments continued to influence architects' designs, particularly in the realm of prefabricated
construction, as seen in the works of R. Buckminster Fuller and Moshe Safdie. The development
of sophisticated air conditioning and heating systems also allowed modern architecture to spread
from the temperate climates of Europe and North America to countries with extremely varied
weather conditions.

Increasingly, during the 1950s, modern architecture was criticized for its sterility, its "institutional"
anonymity, and its disregard for regional building traditions. More varied and individual, as well
as regionalist, modes of expression were sought by architects of the next generation, although the
basic emphasis on structure and materials continued. This tendency was evident in the works of
Louis Kahn, Edward Durell Stone, and Philip Cortelyou Johnson in the United States, and the
architects of the so-called New Brutalism movement in England. A dynamic sculptural unity
distinguished the buildings of Eero Saarinen and the late works of Le Corbusier. Other leading
architects of this generation include Alvar Aalto of Finland, the Italians Pier Luigi Nervi and Paolo
Soleri, and in Central and South America, Lúcio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer, Juan O'Gorman, and
Felix Candela.