International Style in Europe

By the turn of the 20th century, architects across the world began attempting to incorporate the emerging social demands and technological developments in traditional architecture. Exemplifying this concept are the designs of contemporary architects, Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona, Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde in Brussels, Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Glasgow and Otto Wagner in Vienna, among many others.

It was in Western Europe during the 1920s that the International Style of architecture gained popularity as a concept. By that time Ludwig Mies van der Rohe along with Walter Gropius in Germany and Le Corbusier in France, had established themselves as the most important names in modern architecture. There are a substantial number of commonalities to be found among Le Corbusier’s Dutch de Stijl movement and several German essays to modernize craft traditions that led to the creation of large housing projects for workers in Frankfurt and Stuttgart called the Deutscher Werkbund, and, most notably, the Bauhaus. The Bauhaus was one of several European institutions and associations, which worked towards concording craft tradition and modern technology.

International Style characteristics mainly include an elimination of superfluous details in structure at the most basic level as well as elimination of decorative elements, large-scale use of steel, concrete and glass, the transparency of buildings and, thereby the construction (called the honest expression of structure), acceptance of industrialized mass-production technology and the machine aesthetic, recognition of the automobile, and designs that necessarily facilitate the function of the building. Also, a kind of openness towards the future can be sensed.

The ethos of the style is often summarized as: ornament is a crime, truth to materials, form follows function, and Le Corbusier’s interpretation of houses as “machines for living”.

One of the premier and distinctive examples of the International Style was the Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart. It was built in 1927, as a part “Die Wohnung”, the exhibition promoted by the Deutscher Werkbund, and supervised by Mies van der Rohe. Fifteen architects displayed their designs at the exhibition among who, Le Corbusier, Mies, Peter Behrens, Walter Gropius, J.J.P. Oud, Bruno Taut and Mart Stam were prominently associated with the International Style movement. The exhibition was a resounding success and numerous visitors witnessed the houses prima facie.

A town in the Dodecanese island of Leros, Greece, Portolago (now Lakki) exhibits the International Style (referred to as Italian rationalist) in town planning. The administration building, the market tower, the cinema-hall, the building of Hotel Roma (now Hotel Leros), the church of San Francesco and the hospital, all reflect a phenomenal union of shapes and effectiveness, the defining characteristics of the style. Several of its concepts were formalized by the 1928 Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne.

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