International Style

International Style is a term often used to describe Bauhaus architecture in the United States. The name came from the book The International Style by historian and critic Henry-Russell Hitchcock and architect Philip Johnson. The book was published in 1932 in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The term is again used in a later book, International Architecture, by Walter Gropius.

While German Bauhaus architecture had been concerned with the social aspects of design, America's International Style became a symbolism of Capitalism: The International Style is the favored architecture for office buildings, and is also found in upscale homes built for the rich.

By the mid-twentieth century, many variations of the International Style had evolved. In southern California and the American Southwest, architects adapted the International Style to the warm climate and arid terrain, creating an elegant yet informal style known as Desert Modernism.

One of the most famous examples of the International Style is the United Nations Secretariat building, originally designed by an international team of architects including Le Corbusier, Oscar Niemeyer, and Wallace Harrison. The smooth glass-sided slab, one of the first uses of curtain-wall cladding on a tall building, dominates New York's skyline along the East River. The United Nations Secretariat building was completed in 1952 and renovated in 2012.

Learn More:

• "Revival of an Icon" by Joann Gonchar, AIA, Architectural Record, September 2012

See examples of Bauhaus and the International Style:

• The Seagram Building
• The Gropius House
• The Farnsworth House
• Philip Johnson's Glass House
• The Transco Building by Philip Johnson
• The Miller House by Richard Neutra
• The Lovell House by Richard Neutra
• Furniture by Bauhaus Architects

Architects Inspired by the Bauhaus Movement:

• Le Corbusier
• Richard Neutra
• Philip Johnson
• Mies van der Rohe
• Marcel Breuer

More Information:

• The Bauhaus Style
• The Art Moderne House Style
• Bauhaus Chronology