Editing Modern architecture (section)

==Rise of modernism in Europe and Russia (1918–1931)==

After the first World War, a prolonged struggle began between architects who favored the more traditional styles of [[Neo-classical architecture|neo-classicism]] and the [[Beaux-Arts architecture]] style, and the modernists, led by [[Le Corbusier]] and [[Robert Mallet-Stevens]] in France, [[Walter Gropius]] and [[Ludwig Mies van der Rohe]] in Germany, and [[Konstantin Melnikov]] in the new [[Soviet Union]], who wanted only pure forms and the elimination of any decoration. [[Louis Sullivan]] popularized the axiom ''[[Form follows function]]'' to emphasize the importance of utilitarian simplicity in modern architecture. [[Art Deco]] architects such as [[Auguste Perret]] and [[Henri Sauvage]] often made a compromise between the two, combining modernist forms and stylized decoration.

===International Style (1920s–1970s)===
{{main|International Style (architecture)}}
<gallery mode="packed" heights="150">
File:Villa La Roche 2013.jpg|The [[Villa La Roche]]-Jeanneret (now [[Fondation Le Corbusier]]) by [[Le Corbusier]], Paris (1923–25)
File:Weissenhof Corbusier 03.jpg|Corbusier Haus in [[Weissenhof Estate]], Stuttgart (1927)
File:Weissenhof photo house citrohan east façade Le Corbusier & Pierre Jeanneret Stuttgart Germany 2005-10-08.jpg|Citrohan Haus in [[Weissenhof Estate]], Stuttgart by Le Corbusier (1927)
File:VillaSavoye.jpg|The [[Villa Savoye]] in [[Poissy]] by Le Corbusier (1928–31)
File:MalletStevensMezy2.jpg|[[Villa Paul Poiret]] by [[Robert Mallet-Stevens]] (1921–1925)
File:Villa Noailles (Mallet-Stevens, 1923).JPG|The [[Villa Noailles]] in [[Hyères]] by Robert Mallet-Stevens (1923)
File:Villa des frères Martel construite par Robert Mallet-Stevens au 10 rue Mallet-Stevens (Paris), en 1927.jpg|Hôtel Martel rue Mallet-Stevens, by [[Robert Mallet-Stevens]] (1926–1927)
</gallery>

The dominant figure in the rise of modernism in France was Charles-Édouard Jeanerette, a Swiss-French architect who in 1920 took the name [[Le Corbusier]]. In 1920 he co-founded a journal called ''{{'}}L'Espirit Nouveau'' and energetically promoted architecture that was functional, pure, and free of any decoration or historical associations. He was also a passionate advocate of a new urbanism, based on planned cities. In 1922 he presented a design of a city for three million people, whose inhabitants lived in identical sixty-story tall skyscrapers surrounded by open parkland. He designed modular houses, which would be mass-produced on the same plan and assembled into apartment blocks, neighborhoods, and cities. In 1923 he published "Toward an Architecture", with his famous slogan, "a house is a machine for living in."<ref>Le Corbusier, ''Vers une architecture", (1923), Flammarion edition (1995), pages XVIII-XIX</ref> He tirelessly promoted his ideas through slogans, articles, books, conferences, and participation in Expositions.

To illustrate his ideas, in the 1920s he built a series of houses and villas in and around Paris. They were all built according to a common system, based upon the use of reinforced concrete, and of reinforced concrete pylons in the interior which supported the structure, allowing glass curtain walls on the façade and open floor plans, independent of the structure. They were always white, and had no ornament or decoration on the outside or inside. The best-known of these houses was the [[Villa Savoye]], built in 1928–1931 in the Paris suburb of [[Poissy]]. An elegant white box wrapped with a ribbon of glass windows around on the façade, with living space that opened upon an interior garden and countryside around, raised up by a row of white pylons in the center of a large lawn, it became an icon of modernist architecture.{{Sfn|Bony|2012|page=83}}

===Bauhaus and the German Werkbund (1919–1933)===
{{Main|Bauhaus}}
<gallery mode="packed" heights="150px">
File:Bauhaus Dessau 2018.jpg|The [[Bauhaus Dessau building]] in [[Dessau]], designed by [[Walter Gropius]] (1926)
Bernau bei Berlin ADGB Schule Wohntrakte vorne.jpg|[[ADGB Trade Union School]] in [[Bernau bei Berlin]] by [[Hannes Meyer]] and [[Hans Wittwer]] (1928–30)
File:Haus am Horn, Weimar (Südwestansicht).jpg|[[Haus am Horn]], [[Weimar]] by [[Georg Muche]] (1923)
File:The Barcelona Pavilion, Barcelona, 2010.jpg|The [[Barcelona Pavilion]] (modern reconstruction) by [[Ludwig Mies van der Rohe]] (1929)
File:WeissenhofsiedlungJJPOud-pjt.jpg|The [[Weissenhof Estate]] in [[Stuttgart]], built by the [[German Werkbund]] (1927)
</gallery>
In Germany, two important modernist movements appeared after the first World War, The [[Bauhaus]] was a school founded in [[Weimar]] in 1919 under the direction of [[Walter Gropius]]. Gropius was the son of the official state architect of Berlin, who studied before the war with [[Peter Behrens]], and designed the modernist Fagus turbine factory. The Bauhaus was a fusion of the prewar Academy of Arts and the school of technology. In 1926 it was transferred from Weimar to Dessau; Gropius designed the new school and student dormitories in the new, purely functional modernist style he was encouraging. The school brought together modernists in all fields; the faculty included the modernist painters [[Vasily Kandinsky]], [[Josef Albers|Joseph Albers]] and [[Paul Klee]], and the designer [[Marcel Breuer]].

Gropius became an important theorist of modernism, writing ''The Idea and Construction'' in 1923. He was an advocate of standardization in architecture, and the mass construction of rationally designed apartment blocks for factory workers. In 1928 he was commissioned by the [[Siemens]] company to build apartment for workers in the suburbs of Berlin, and in 1929 he proposed the construction of clusters of slender eight- to ten-story high-rise apartment towers for workers.

While Gropius was active at the Bauhaus, [[Ludwig Mies van der Rohe]] led the modernist architectural movement in Berlin. Inspired by the [[De Stijl]] movement in the Netherlands, he built clusters of concrete summer houses and proposed a project for a glass office tower. He became the vice president of the German Werkbund, and became the head of the Bauhaus from 1930 to 1933. proposing a wide variety of modernist plans for urban reconstruction. His most famous modernist work was the German pavilion for the 1929 international exposition in Barcelona. It was a work of pure modernism, with glass and concrete walls and clean, horizontal lines. Though it was only a temporary structure, and was torn down in 1930, it became, along with Le Corbusier's [[Villa Savoye]], one of the best-known landmarks of modernist architecture. A reconstructed version now stands on the original site in Barcelona.{{Sfn|Bony|2012|pages=93–95}}

When the Nazis came to power in Germany, they viewed the Bauhaus as a training ground for communists, and closed the school in 1933. Gropius left Germany and went to England, then to the United States, where he and [[Marcel Breuer]] both joined the faculty of the [[Harvard Graduate School of Design]], and became the teachers of a generation of American postwar architects. In 1937 Mies van der Rohe also moved to the United States; he became one of the most famous designers of postwar American skyscrapers.{{Sfn|Bony|2012|pages=93–95}}

===Expressionist architecture (1918–1931)===
{{main|Expressionist architecture}} 
<gallery mode="packed" heights="150px">
File:Berlin Grosses Schauspielhaus Poelzig Foyer.jpg|Foyer of the Großes Schauspielhaus, or Great Theater, in Berlin by [[Hans Poelzig]] (1919)
File:Einsteinturm 7443.jpg|The [[Einstein Tower]] near Berlin by [[Erich Mendelsohn]] (1920–24)
File:Berlin, Mitte, Schuetzenstrasse, Mosse-Zentrum 05.jpg|The [[Mossehaus]] in Berlin by [[Erich Mendelsohn]], an early example of streamline moderne (1921–23)
File:Chilehaus - Hamburg.jpg|The [[Chilehaus]] in Hamburg by [[Fritz Höger]] (1921–24)
File:Berlin Hufeisensiedlung UAV 04-2017.jpg|[[Horseshoe Estate]] public housing project by [[Bruno Taut]] (1925)
File:Goetheanum im Winter von Süden.jpg|[[Goetheanum|Second Goetheanum]] in [[Dornach]] near [[Basel]] ([[Switzerland]]) by the Austrian architect [[Rudolf Steiner]] (1924–1928)
File:Amsterdam Het Schip 006.JPG|[[Het Schip]] apartment building in [[Amsterdam]] by [[Michel de Klerk]] (1917–1920)
File:Den Haag De Bijenkorf 001.JPG|{{lang|nl|[[De Bijenkorf]]|italic=no}} store in [[The Hague]] by [[Piet Kramer]] (1924–1926)
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[[Expressionism]], which appeared in Germany between 1910 and 1925, was a counter-movement against the strictly functional architecture of the Bauhaus and Werkbund. Its advocates, including [[Bruno Taut]], [[Hans Poelzig]], [[Fritz Hoger]] and [[Erich Mendelsohn]], wanted to create architecture that was poetic, expressive, and optimistic. Many expressionist architects had fought in World War I and their experiences, combined with the political turmoil and social upheaval that followed the [[German Revolution]] of 1919, resulted in a utopian outlook and a romantic socialist agenda.<ref>Jencks, p. 59</ref> Economic conditions severely limited the number of built commissions between 1914 and the mid-1920s,<ref>Sharp, p. 68</ref> As result, many of the most innovative expressionist projects, including [[Bruno Taut]]'s ''Alpine Architecture'' and [[Hermann Finsterlin]]'s ''Formspiels'', remained on paper. [[Scenography]] for theatre and films provided another outlet for the expressionist imagination,<ref>Pehnt, p. 163</ref> and provided supplemental incomes for designers attempting to challenge conventions in a harsh economic climate. A particular type, using bricks to create its forms (rather than concrete) is known as [[Brick Expressionism]].

[[Erich Mendelsohn]], (who disliked the term Expressionism for his work) began his career designing churches, silos, and factories which were highly imaginative, but, for lack of resources, were never built. In 1920, he finally was able to construct one of his works in the city of Potsdam; an observatory and research center called the [[Einsteinium]], named in tribute to [[Albert Einstein]]. It was supposed to be built of reinforced concrete, but because of technical problems it was finally built of traditional materials covered with plaster. His sculptural form, very different from the austere rectangular forms of the Bauhaus, first won him commissions to build movie theaters and retail stores in Stuttgart, Nuremberg, and Berlin. His [[Mossehaus]] in Berlin was an early model for the [[streamline moderne]] style. His [[Columbushaus]] on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin (1931) was a prototype for the modernist office buildings that followed. (It was torn down in 1957, because it stood in the zone between East and West Berlin, where the [[Berlin Wall]] was constructed.) Following the rise of the Nazis to power, he moved to England (1933), then to the United States (1941).{{Sfn|Bony|2012|page=95}}

[[Fritz Höger]] was another notable Expressionist architect of the period. His [[Chilehaus]] was built as the headquarters of a shipping company, and was modeled after a giant steamship, a triangular building with a sharply pointed bow. It was constructed of dark brick, and used external piers to express its vertical structure. Its external decoration borrowed from Gothic cathedrals, as did its internal arcades. [[Hans Poelzig]] was another notable expressionist architect. In 1919 he built the [[Großes Schauspielhaus]], an immense theater in Berlin, seating five thousand spectators for theater impresario [[Max Reinhardt]]. It featured elongated shapes like stalagmites hanging down from its gigantic dome, and lights on massive columns in its foyer. He also constructed the [[IG Farben building]], a massive corporate headquarters, now the main building of [[Goethe University]] in Frankfurt. [[Bruno Taut]] specialized in building large-scale apartment complexes for working-class Berliners. He built twelve thousand individual units, sometimes in buildings with unusual shapes, such as a giant horseshoe. Unlike most other modernists, he used bright exterior colors to give his buildings more life The use of dark brick in the German projects gave that particular style a name, [[Brick Expressionism]].{{Sfn|Tietz|1999|pages=26–27}}

The Austrian philosopher, architect, and social critic [[Rudolf Steiner]] also departed as far as possible from traditional architectural forms. His [[Goetheanum|Second Goetheanum]], built from 1926 near [[Basel]], [[Switzerland]] and [[Erich Mendelsohn|Mendelsohn]]'s [[Einsteinturm]] in Potsdam, Germany, were based on no traditional models and had entirely original shapes.

===Constructivist architecture (1919–1931)===
{{main|Constructivist architecture}}
<gallery mode="packed" heights="150">
File:Tatlin's Tower maket 1919 year.jpg|Model of the Tower for the Third International, by [[Vladimir Tatlin]] (1919)
File:Lenin Mausoleum.jpg|The [[Lenin Mausoleum]] in Moscow by [[Alexey Shchusev]] (1924)
File:Pavillon de l'URSS Paris (1925).jpg|The USSR Pavilion at the 1925 Paris Exposition of Decorative Arts, by [[Konstantin Melnikov]] (1925)
File:Moscow RusakovWorkersClub 2253.jpg|Rusakov Workers' Club, Moscow, by [[Konstantin Melnikov]] (1928)
File:Mr.M. C. Dresselhuyspaviljoen, overzicht van de zuidvleugel, dan wel scheeve vleugel, tijdens restauratie - Hilversum - 20422171 - RCE.jpg|[[Zonnestraal (estate)|Zonnestraal Sanatorium]] in [[Hilversum]] by [[Jan Duiker]] and Bernard Bijvoet (1926–1928)
File:Openluchtschool - Open-air School (8157211576).jpg|[[Open air school]] in Amsterdam by [[Jan Duiker]] (1929–1930)
File:VN5 HDR2.jpg|[[Van Nelle Factory]] in [[Rotterdam]] by [[Leendert van der Vlugt]] and [[Mart Stam]] (1927–1931)
File:Будинок держпромисловості, Харків DJI 0060.jpg|[[Derzhprom]] in [[Kharkiv]] by Sergei Serafimov, Samuel Kravets and Mark Felger (1925–1928)
</gallery>
Proto-Constructvism began developing in the 1910s in the [[Russian Empire]], advocated by local architects such as {{Ill|Oleksandr Ginzburg|uk|Гінзбург Олександр Маркович}}.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Pavlenko |first=Olena |date=16 January 2025 |title= |script-title=uk:Імена Харкова. Олександр Гінзбург — предтеча харківського конструктивізму |trans-title=Names from Kharkiv. Oleksandr Ginzburg — the forerunner of Kharkiv constructivism |url=https://2day.kh.ua/ua/kharkow/imena-kharkova-oleksandr-hinzburh-predtecha-kharkivskoho-konstruktyvizmu |access-date=10 May 2025 |website=Kharkiv Today |language=uk}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=13 January 2023 |title= |script-title=uk:Дніпровська філармонія: історія центру культури та її будівлі |trans-title=Dnipro Philharmonic Theatre: history of the center of culture and its building |url=https://gorod.dp.ua/news/213987 |access-date=10 May 2025 |website=Gorod.dp.ua |language=uk}}</ref> After the [[Russian Revolution]] of 1917, Russian avant-garde artists and architects began searching for a new Soviet style which could replace traditional neoclassicism. The new architectural movements were closely tied with the literary and artistic movements of the period, the [[futurism]] of poet [[Vladimir Mayakovskiy]], the [[Suprematism]] of painter [[Kasimir Malevich]], and the colorful [[Rayonism]] of painter [[Mikhail Larionov]]. The most startling design that emerged was the tower proposed by painter and sculptor [[Vladimir Tatlin]] for the Moscow meeting of the Third [[Communist International]] in 1920: he proposed two interlaced towers of metal four hundred meters high, with four geometric volumes suspended from cables. The movement of Russian [[Constructivist architecture]] was launched in 1921 by a group of artists led by [[Aleksandr Rodchenko]]. Their manifesto proclaimed that their goal was to find the "communist expression of material structures". Soviet architects began to construct workers' clubs, communal apartment houses, and communal kitchens for feeding whole neighborhoods.{{Sfn|Bony|2012|pages=86–87}}

One of the first prominent constructivist architects to emerge in Moscow was [[Konstantin Melnikov]], the number of working clubs – including [[Rusakov Workers' Club]] (1928) – and his own living house, [[The Melnikov House|Melnikov House]] (1929) near [[Arbat Street]] in Moscow. Melnikov traveled to Paris in 1925 where he built the Soviet Pavilion for the [[International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts]] in Paris in 1925; it was a highly geometric vertical construction of glass and steel crossed by a diagonal stairway, and crowned with a hammer and sickle. The leading group of constructivist architects, led by [[Vesnin brothers]] and [[Moisei Ginzburg]], was publishing the 'Contemporary Architecture' journal. This group created several major constructivist projects in the wake of the First Five Year Plan – including colossal [[Dnieper Hydroelectric Station]] (1932) – and made an attempt to start the standardization of living blocks with Ginzburg's [[Narkomfin building]]. A number of architects from the pre-Soviet period also took up the constructivist style. The most famous example was [[Lenin's Mausoleum]] in Moscow (1924), by [[Alexey Shchusev]] (1924)<ref>{{cite web|title = Alexey Shchusev (1873–1949)|date = 29 March 2014|url = http://www.architectural-review.com/view/reviews/reputations/alexey-shchusev-1873-1949/8660736.article|access-date = 16 August 2015}}</ref>

The main centers of constructivist architecture were Moscow and Leningrad; however, during the industrialization many constructivist buildings were erected in provincial cities. The regional industrial centers, including [[Yekaterinburg|Ekaterinburg]], [[Kharkiv]] or [[Ivanovo]], were rebuilt in the constructivist manner; some cities, like [[Magnitogorsk]] or [[Sotsmisto, Zaporizhzhia|Zaporizhzhia]], were constructed anew (the so-called ''sotsgorod'', or 'socialist city').

The style fell markedly out of favor in the 1930s, replaced by the more grandiose nationalist styles that Stalin favored. Constructivist architects and even [[Le Corbusier]] projects for the new [[Palace of the Soviets]] from 1931 to 1933, but the winner was an early Stalinist building in the style termed [[Postconstructivism]]. The last major Russian constructivist building, by [[Boris Iofan]], was built for the [[Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne|Paris World Exhibition]] (1937), where it faced the pavilion of Nazi Germany by Hitler's architect [[Albert Speer]].<ref>{{Cite journal|title = Facing Hitler's Pavilion: The Uses of Modernity in the Soviet Pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exhibition|journal = Journal of Contemporary History|date = 1 January 2012|issn = 0022-0094|pages = 13–47|volume = 47|issue = 1|doi = 10.1177/0022009411422369|first = Danilo|last = Udovički-Selb|s2cid = 159546579}}</ref>

===New Objectivity (1920–1933) ===
{{main|New Objectivity (architecture)}}
<gallery mode="packed" heights="150px">
File:Ernstmay2.jpg|[[Römerstadt]], [[New Frankfurt|Frankfurt am Main]], by [[Ernst May]] (1927–1929)
File: Neues-frankfurt heimatsiedlung.jpg|Heimatsiedlung in [[New Frankfurt|Frankfurt an Main]] by Franz Roeckle (1927–1934)
File:Weissenhof photo apartment house Mies van der Rohe Stuttgart Germany 2005-10-08.jpg|Apartment house in [[Weißenhofsiedlung|Stuttgart]] by [[Mies van der Rohe]] (1927)
File:Berlin-taut-bauten-naugarderstrII.jpg|Flats in Berlin's [[Prenzlauer Berg]] by [[Bruno Taut]] (1920s)
File:Berlin Maeckeritzstr.jpg|Flats in [[Siemensstadt]], Berlin, by [[Hans Scharoun]] (early 1930s)
File:Kaufhaus Schocken in Chemnitz 2014.jpg|Former Schocken Department Store, [[Chemnitz]], by [[Erich Mendelsohn]] (1927-1930) 
</gallery>
The New Objectivity (in German Neue Sachlichkeit, sometimes also translated as New Sobriety) is a name often given to the Modern architecture that emerged in Europe, primarily German-speaking Europe, in the 1920s and 30s. It is also frequently called Neues Bauen (New Building). The New Objectivity took place in many German cities in that period, for example in Frankfurt with its [[Neues Frankfurt]] project.

===Modernism becomes a movement: CIAM (1928)===
{{main|Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne}}
By the late 1920s, modernism had become an important movement in Europe. Architecture, which previously had been predominantly national, began to become international. The architects traveled, met each other, and shared ideas. Several modernists, including [[Le Corbusier]], had participated in the competition for the headquarters of the [[League of Nations]] in 1927. In the same year, the German Werkbund organized an architectural exposition at the [[Weissenhof Estate]] [[Stuttgart]]. Seventeen leading modernist architects in Europe were invited to design twenty-one houses; Le Corbusier, and [[Ludwig Mies van der Rohe]] played a major part. In 1927 Le Corbusier, Pierre Chareau, and others proposed the foundation of an international conference to establish the basis for a common style. The first meeting of the ''[[Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne|Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne]]'' or International Congresses of Modern Architects (CIAM), was held in a chateau on [[Lake Leman]] in Switzerland 26–28 June 1928. Those attending included Le Corbusier, [[Robert Mallet-Stevens]], [[Auguste Perret]], [[Pierre Chareau]] and [[Tony Garnier (architect)|Tony Garnier]] from France; [[Victor Bourgeois]] from Belgium; [[Walter Gropius]], [[Erich Mendelsohn]], [[Ernst May]] and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from Germany; [[Josef Frank (architect)|Josef Frank]] from Austria; [[Mart Stam]] and [[Gerrit Rietveld]] from the Netherlands, and [[Adolf Loos]] from Czechoslovakia. A delegation of Soviet architects was invited to attend, but they were unable to obtain visas. Later members included [[Josep Lluís Sert]] of Spain and [[Alvar Aalto]] of Finland. No one attended from the United States. A second meeting was organized in 1930 in Brussels by Victor Bourgeois on the topic "Rational methods for groups of habitations". A third meeting, on "The functional city", was scheduled for Moscow in 1932, but was cancelled at the last minute. Instead, the delegates held their meeting on a cruise ship traveling between Marseille and Athens. On board, they together drafted a text on how modern cities should be organized. The text, called The [[Athens Charter]], after considerable editing by Corbusier and others, was finally published in 1957 and became an influential text for city planners in the 1950s and 1960s. The group met once more in Paris in 1937 to discuss public housing and was scheduled to meet in the United States in 1939, but the meeting was cancelled because of the war. The legacy of the CIAM was a roughly common style and doctrine which helped define modern architecture in Europe and the United States after World War II.{{Sfn|Bony|2012|pages=84–85}}