The term “International Style” refers to the buildings and architects of the early years of the modern movement, typically considered to be from the 1920’s until WWII. The common characteristics are easy to identify: extreme simplification of form, no ornament, and use of glass, steel and concrete as the main materials.
The chosen ideals of the style are expressed in the following slogans: ornament is a crime (Adolf Loos), truth to materials, form follows function (Louis Sullivan), and the description of the house as a “machine for living” (Le Corbusier).
The belief systems that led to this architecture are now considered naïve, and the architecture is said to be cold and withdrawn. However, there were several masters of the style who designed wonderful examples of the simplistic beauty of form that can be achieved in these “machines”. In this category we will waymark the work of those architects, the creators and masters of the International Style. We realize that some of the architects’ early and late work may fall into other stylistic forms, however they are still allowed in this category. This will give a full breadth of the style from its early beginnings to its movement beyond modernism.
There are many architects that could be chosen to represent the style, however, for the reason of simplicity we have chosen the architects listed on the International Style Wikipedia page. They are: Alvar Aalto (Finnish), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (German), Walter Gropius (German), Le Corbusier (Swiss/French), Louis Kahn (American), Philip Johnson (American), Richard Neutra (Viennese), and Oscar Niemeyer (Brazilian), Welton Becket (American), William Lescaze (Swiss/American), Carlos Raul Villanueva (Venezuelan), Frits Peutz (Dutch), Ralph Rapson (American), Gerrit Rietveld (Dutch), and Rudolf Schindler (Austrian/American),. Eileen Gray is included on the list, however she was a furniture designer.
Allowable as waymarks are any buildings or large structures (bridges, pavilions, etc.) designed by the aforementioned architects. Items such as furniture, lighting, or sculpture that they have designed, although wonderful, is not to be posted to this category. If the building is a residence, please be respectful and take coordinates from the best viewpoint, rather than at the building's entrance.
