Hitchcock, The International Style (Norton, 1966 originally published in 1932).

Marcel Franciscono, Walter Gropius and the Creation of the Bauhaus in Weimar: the Ideals and Artistic Theories of its Founding Years (Urbana: Illinois University Press, 1971).

Curtis, Modern Architecture since 1900 (London, Phaidon Press, 1996). Mansfield, History of Modern Art (New York: Pearson, 2012). Surveys of twentieth-century architecture: Norton, 1986, Adolf Loos, “ Ornament and Crime,” 1908, and Francisco Mujica, History of the Skyscraper, 1929/1977. Louis Sullivan: The Function of Ornament. This critique was then revived, mid-century, in the multifaceted designs of Postmodernism-which, again, tried to break open the International Style’s “glass box.”įor readings that encompass the context of architectural design in the early twentieth century, see De Wit, Wim, ed.

In this lecture, Frank Lloyd Wright represents this second point of view, fervently critiquing the International Style in his designs and writing. Others saw the Industrial Revolution as a negative assault on culture, a tendency that caused architects to blatantly disregard the foundational styles of architectural history. At the beginning of the twentieth century, some architects saw industrialization as a new advantage to be embraced and celebrated, represented in this lecture in the International Style.

Since architecture in the twentieth century is such a huge topic, this lecture is limited to three brief architectural narratives originating in the United States and Europe. Breaking with the past, a strain of architects of the twentieth century discontinued this tradition in order to create a more appropriate style for the modern age. In the latter part of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth in western countries, it was common for architecture to revive historical styles such as the Classical and the Gothic. Architects in the twentieth century continued this exploration, and created buildings much higher and more complex than architects of previous eras could dream. Over the course of the nineteenth century, following the birth of the Industrial Revolution, architecture changed significantly, becoming increasingly less concerned with the past and more experimental, given innovations in building materials and technology. Dialog and affinities still exist between the two, however, especially in the development of the modernist and postmodern movements. In addition, because designing and constructing a building takes much more time and financial investment, movements in architectural history tend to rotate and evolve more slowly than avant-garde art movements occurring at the same time. Compared to the relative autonomy of painting or sculpture, architecture always has a functional purpose and is subject to the desires and needs of its patrons and its inhabitants, as well as the physical laws of engineering and physics. Whether lecturing on architectural history in a class that also covers art, or within a survey on architectural history, it is important to remind your students that there are very different demands, limitations, and criteria when it comes to architectural innovation and history.

Medieval architecture timeline