Editing Modern architecture (section)

==Early modernism in Europe (1900–1914)==
<gallery mode="packed" heights="150">
File:Schoolofart1.jpg|The [[Glasgow School of Art]] by [[Charles Rennie Mackintosh]] (1896–99)
File:25bis rue Benjamin-Franklin (25437741212).jpg|Reinforced concrete apartment building by [[Auguste Perret]], Paris (1903)
File:Vienna - PSK Otto Wagner's Postsparkasse - 5977.jpg|[[Austrian Postal Savings Bank]] in Vienna by [[Otto Wagner]] (1904–1906)
File:Berlin AEG Turbinenfabrik.jpg|The [[AEG turbine factory]] in Berlin by [[Peter Behrens]] (1909)
File:Casa Steiner - Foto Fachada Trasera.jpg|The [[Steiner House]] in Vienna by [[Adolf Loos]], main façade (1910)
File:Woluwe-St-Pierre - Hoffmann 050917 (1).jpg|[[Stoclet Palace]] by [[Josef Hoffmann]], Brussels, (1906–1911)
File:Théâtre des Champs-Élysées DSC09330.jpg|The [[Théâtre des Champs-Élysées]] in Paris by [[Auguste Perret]] (1911–1913)
File:01Sauvage26rueVavin.JPG|Stepped concrete apartment building in Paris by [[Henri Sauvage]] (1912–1914)
File:Копия ginsburg4.PNG|[[The Ginsburg skyscraper]] in [[Kyiv]] (1910–1912) by Adolf Minkus and Fyodor Troupianskyi, Europe's tallest building by roof height before 1925. 
File:Wroclaw - Hala Stulecia z fontanna.jpg|The [[Hala Stulecia (Wrocław)|Centennial Hall]] in [[Wrocław]] by [[Max Berg]] (1911–1913)
File:Fagus-Werke-01.jpg|The [[Fagus Factory]] in [[Alfeld]] by [[Walter Gropius]] and [[Adolf Meyer (architect)|Adolf Meyer]] (1911–13)
File:Taut Glass Pavilion exterior 1914.jpg|The [[Glass Pavilion]] in [[Cologne]] by [[Bruno Taut]] (1914) 
</gallery>
At the end of the 19th century, a few architects began to challenge the traditional [[Beaux-Arts architecture|Beaux Arts]] and [[Neoclassical architecture|Neoclassical]] styles that dominated architecture in Europe and the United States. The [[Glasgow School of Art]] (1896–99) designed by [[Charles Rennie Mackintosh]], had a façade dominated by large vertical bays of windows.{{Sfn |Bony |2012 |page=27}} The [[Art Nouveau]] style was launched in the 1890s by [[Victor Horta]] in Belgium and [[Hector Guimard]] in France; it introduced new styles of decoration, based on vegetal and floral forms. In Barcelona, [[Antonio Gaudi]] conceived architecture as a form of sculpture; the façade of the [[Casa Batlló]] in Barcelona (1904–1907) had no straight lines; it was encrusted with colorful mosaics of stone and ceramic tiles.{{Sfn|Bony|2012|page=33}}

Architects also began to experiment with new materials and techniques, which gave them greater freedom to create new forms. In 1903–1904 in Paris [[Auguste Perret]] and [[Henri Sauvage]] began to use [[reinforced concrete]], previously only used for industrial structures, to build apartment buildings.{{Sfn|Poisson|2009|pages=318–319}} Reinforced concrete, which could be molded into any shape, and which could create enormous spaces without the need of supporting pillars, replaced stone and brick as the primary material for modernist architects. The first concrete apartment buildings by Perret and Sauvage were covered with ceramic tiles, but in 1905 Perret built the first concrete parking garage on 51 rue de Ponthieu in Paris; here the concrete was left bare, and the space between the concrete was filled with glass windows. [[Henri Sauvage]] added another construction innovation in an apartment building on Rue Vavin in Paris (1912–1914); the reinforced concrete building was in steps, with each floor set back from the floor below, creating a series of terraces. Between 1910 and 1913, Auguste Perret built the [[Théâtre des Champs-Élysées]], a masterpiece of reinforced concrete construction, with Art Deco sculptural bas-reliefs on the façade by [[Antoine Bourdelle]]. Because of the concrete construction, no columns blocked the spectator's view of the stage.{{Sfn|Poisson|2009|page=318}}

[[Otto Wagner]], in Vienna, was another pioneer of the new style. In his book ''Moderne Architektur'' (1895) he had called for a more rationalist style of architecture, based on "modern life".<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0226869393 Otto Wagner, ''Modern Architecture: A Guidebook for His Students to this Field of Art''], 1895, translation by Harry Francis Mallgrave, Getty Publications, 1988, {{ISBN|0226869393}}</ref> He designed a stylized ornamental metro station at [[Karlsplatz]] in Vienna (1888–89), then an ornamental [[Art Nouveau]] residence, Majolika House (1898), before moving to a much more geometric and simplified style, without ornament, in the [[Austrian Postal Savings Bank]] (1904–1906). Wagner declared his intention to express the function of the building in its exterior. The reinforced concrete exterior was covered with plaques of marble attached with bolts of polished aluminum. The interior was purely functional and spare, a large open space of steel, glass, and concrete where the only decoration was the structure itself.{{Sfn|Bony|2012|page=36}}

The Viennese architect [[Adolf Loos]] also began removing any ornament from his buildings. His [[Steiner House]], in Vienna (1910), was an example of what he called [[rationalist architecture]]; it had a simple [[stucco]] rectangular façade with square windows and no ornament. The fame of the new movement, which became known as the [[Vienna Secession]] spread beyond Austria. [[Josef Hoffmann]], a student of Wagner, constructed a landmark of early modernist architecture, the [[Stoclet Palace]], in Brussels, in 1906–1911. This residence, built of brick covered with Norwegian marble, was composed of geometric blocks, wings, and a tower. A large pool in front of the house reflected its cubic forms. The interior was decorated with paintings by [[Gustav Klimt]] and other artists, and the architect even designed clothing for the family to match the architecture.{{Sfn|Bony|2012|page=38}}

In Germany, a modernist industrial movement, ''[[Deutscher Werkbund]]'' (German Work Federation) had been created in Munich in 1907 by [[Hermann Muthesius]], a prominent architectural commentator. Its goal was to bring together designers and industrialists, to turn out well-designed, high-quality products, and in the process to invent a new type of architecture.<ref>Lucius Burckhardt (1987). ''The Werkbund''. ? : Hyperion Press. ISBN. Frederic J. Schwartz (1996). ''The Werkbund: Design Theory and Mass Culture Before the First World War''. New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press. ISBN.</ref> The organization originally included twelve architects and twelve business firms, but quickly expanded. The architects include [[Peter Behrens]], [[Theodor Fischer]] (who served as its first president), [[Josef Hoffmann]] and [[Richard Riemerschmid]].<ref>[[Mark Jarzombek]]. "Joseph August Lux: Werkbund Promoter, Historian of a Lost Modernity", ''Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians'' 63/1 (June 2004): 202–219.</ref> In 1909 Behrens designed one of the earliest and most influential industrial buildings in the modernist style, the [[AEG turbine factory]], a functional monument of steel and concrete. In 1911–1913, [[Adolf Meyer (architect)|Adolf Meyer]] and [[Walter Gropius]], who had both worked for Behrens, built another revolutionary industrial plant, the Fagus Factory in Alfeld an der Laine, a building without ornament where every construction element was on display. The ''Werkbund'' organized a major exposition of modernist design in Cologne just a few weeks before the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. For the 1914 Cologne exhibition, [[Bruno Taut]] built a revolutionary glass pavilion.{{Sfn|Tietz|1999|page=19}}