ABSTRACT
Term, coined by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and developed by Philip Johnson to describe the new architecture that had begun to emerge in the 1920s, and ultimately to promote a unified body of architectural theory and practice by encapsulating the basic principles of modernism, in terms of a functional emphasis on volume, regularity and technical perfection. While rationalistic modernist architecture in Europe tended to be developed in the context of an explicit political project, Hitchcock and Johnson’s description of the International Style perhaps more readily fits the apolitical, typically commercially oriented American architecture of the inter-and post-war years. One of Johnson’s last summaries of principles of the International Style was: ‘structural honesty; repetitive modular rhythms; clarity, expressed by oceans of glass; flat roof; box as perfect container; no ornament’. While this unquestionably, and inevitably, oversimplifies the diversity of modern architecture, it does express something very characteristic of much modern architecture, be it commercial or domestic, found throughout the world. [AE] Further reading: Hitchcock and Johnson 1966.
