Modern architecture

Modern architecture is a broad term given to a number of building styles with similar characteristics, primarily the simplification of form and the elimination of ornament, that first arose around 1900. By the 1940s these styles had been consolidated and identified as the International Style and became the dominant way of building for several decades in the twentieth century.

Origins

Some historians see the evolution of modern architecture as a social matter, closely tied to the project of Modernity and hence to the Enlightenment, a result of social and political revolutions.

Related Topics:
Modernity - The Enlightenment

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Others see modern architecture as primarily driven by technological and engineering developments, and it's plainly true that the availability of new materials such as iron, steel, concrete and glass drove the invention of new building techniques as part of the Industrial Revolution. The Crystal Palace by Joseph Paxton at the Great Exhibition of 1851 is an early example; possibly the best example is Louis Sullivan's development of the tall steel skyscraper in Chicago around 1890.

Related Topics:
Iron - Steel - Concrete - Glass - Industrial Revolution - The Crystal Palace - Joseph Paxton - Great Exhibition - 1851 - Louis Sullivan - Chicago - 1890

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Other historians regard modernism as a matter of taste, a reaction against eclecticism and the lavish stylistic excesses of Victorian Era and Edwardian Art Nouveau.

Related Topics:
Eclecticism - Victorian Era - Edwardian - Art Nouveau

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Whatever the cause, around 1900 a number of architects around the world began developing new architectural solutions to integrate traditional precedents (Gothic, for instance) with new technological possibilities. The work of Louis Sullivan in Chicago, Victor Horta in Brussels, Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona, Otto Wagner in Vienna and Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Glasgow, among many others, can be seen as a common struggle between old and new.

Related Topics:
1900 - Gothic - Louis Sullivan - Victor Horta - Antoni Gaudi - Otto Wagner - Charles Rennie Mackintosh

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