{"id":400420,"date":"2026-04-19T17:03:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T17:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/400420\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T17:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T17:03:17","slug":"modernist-architecture-and-design-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/400420\/","title":{"rendered":"Modernist Architecture and Design, Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"

How to
Be Cultured<\/a> Menu Architecture and Design <\/p>\n

The Breuer Building (1966) in New York by Marcel Breuer, originally designed for the Whitney Museum of American Art. Colin Miller<\/p>\n

Brutalism<\/p>\n

The term \u201cBrutalism\u201d has nothing to do with the word \u201cbrutal,\u201d says the American architecture critic Alexandra Lange, 53. It takes its name from the French word for raw concrete (b\u00e9ton brut), the material with which the style is most associated. As the London-based architect Jayden Ali, 27, puts it, Modernism, which roughly spanned the 1910s to the \u201970s, sought lightness; by contrast, Brutalism, which emerged in Britain in the 1950s and was taken up internationally in the \u201960s and \u201970s, is all about heavy, blocky forms. \u201cIt evokes a sensation that\u2019s unsteady,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The Oscar Niemeyer-designed National Congress (1960) in the planned city of Bras\u00edlia, developed in 1956 by Joaquim Cardozo, L\u00facio Costa and Niemeyer. Magda Biernat\/Otto<\/p>\n

City Planning<\/p>\n

The idea of the city as a rational machine \u2014 with strict zoning, high\u2011rise housing and green space \u2014 was shaped by Modernist architects such as Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius in the interwar period. It spread around the world as governments rebuilt cities after World War II and invested in public housing and social services.<\/p>\n

Villa Shodhan (1954) in Ahmedabad, India, by Le Corbusier. Edmund Sumner\/View Pictures\/Superstock<\/p>\n

\u201cFive Points of a New Architecture\u201d<\/p>\n

The title of a 1929 manifesto by Le Corbusier<\/a>, whom the Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, 51, calls \u201cthe grandfather of Modernism.\u201d In it, Le Corbusier outlines five architectural principles of Modernist architecture: pilotis (slender columns that raise a building above the ground); a roof garden (\u201cinstead of wasting the roof\u2019s surface, you double the building\u2019s footprint,\u201d Ingels says); a free plan and free facade (which allow interior and exterior walls to function independently of a building\u2019s load-bearing system); and banded windows (long, horizontal windows that provide ample light and panoramic views).<\/p>\n

The Bauhaus art and design school (1926) in Dessau, Germany, by Walter Gropius. Dennis Gilbert\/View Pictures\/Superstock<\/p>\n

Functionalism<\/p>\n

A subset of Modernist architecture that emerged after World War\u00a0I, Functionalism posited that buildings should be whittled down to their simplest expression and that every component should serve a clear purpose. Ali notes that the movement \u2014 which had the most impact in the Soviet Union \u2014 didn\u2019t always follow its own rules. \u201cYou can\u2019t discount the artist\u2019s or the fabricator\u2019s hand in its production,\u201d he says. \u201cIt always has aestheticism attached to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

George Nakashima\u2019s Conoid Desk, originally designed in 1959. Courtesy of George Nakashima Woodworkers, S.A., New Hope, Pa.<\/p>\n

Integrated Pulls<\/p>\n

Some of Modernism\u2019s smallest details ended up changing the way homes and furniture are designed today. One clear example, says the New York-based designer Adam Charlap Hyman<\/a>, 36, is \u201ca pull that\u2019s integrated into a door or cabinet.\u201d This style \u2014 a groove that allows a door or drawer to be opened without any hardware \u2014 has its roots in the Bauhaus<\/a>, Scandinavian design and traditional Japanese joinery. Now it can also be found at your nearest Ikea.<\/p>\n

The United Nations Headquarters (1952) in New York by Wallace K. Harrison and a board of 10 other architects, including Le Corbusier and Niemeyer. \u00a9 SZ Photo\/Rainer Unkel\/Bridgeman Images<\/p>\n

International Style<\/p>\n

So named by the architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock and the architect Philip Johnson<\/a> for an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1932, the International Style is defined by thin rectilinear planes and a lack of color and adornment. Having emerged in Europe after World War I, it went global in the 1950s and \u201960s. For every downtown neighborhood filled with office towers and glass facades, you have the International Style to thank.<\/p>\n

Berthold Lubetkin\u2019s self-designed home (1936) in Whipsnade, England. \u00a9 CLM Archive\/Mary Evans Picture Library<\/p>\n

Lubetkin, Berthold<\/p>\n

The Russian-born architect moved in the 1930s to London, where he became a key figure in British Modern architecture. Less famous than Oscar Niemeyer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe or some of his other peers, Lubetkin designed housing complexes like the Dorset Estate (with his partners Francis Skinner and Douglas Bailey) in the borough of Tower Hamlets, where Ali lived as a child. \u201cSocial housing is an important aspect of Modernism,\u201d he says. \u201cIt becomes design for the general populace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Villa Necchi Campiglio (1935) in Milan by Piero Portaluppi. Denisova\/Kintzing<\/p>\n

Rationalism<\/p>\n

An architectural and design movement that emerged in Italy in the 1920s and \u201930s under the rule of Benito Mussolini\u2019s Fascist regime, Rationalism (or Architettura Razionale) sought to find a middle ground between neo-Classicism and Futurism. In a series of articles in 1926, seven young Italian architects, known as the Gruppo 7, laid out their manifesto, proclaiming, \u201cWe do not intend to break with tradition.\u201d Piero Portaluppi\u2019s Villa Necchi Campiglio<\/a> in Milan is considered a key example of Rationalist architecture.<\/p>\n

The Barbican Estate (1982) in London by Christoph Bon, Peter Chamberlin and Geoffry Powell. Matt Clayton\/View Pictures\/Superstock<\/p>\n

Reinforced Concrete<\/p>\n

Concrete \u2014 a combination of cement, water and aggregate \u2014 has been around since ancient times. But concrete reinforced with steel rebar, developed in the mid-19th century, paved the way for Modernism\u2019s defining curved facades. It also liberated walls from having to hold up buildings. \u201cIt gives this three-dimensional stability and allows for sculptural form making,\u201d Ali says.<\/p>\n

A model for \u201cNew Babylon\u201d (1956-74), a proposed Situationist city by the painter and sculptor Constant Nieuwenhuys. Constant Nieuwenhuys, \u201cMobile Ladder Labyrinth,\u201d 1967 \u00a9 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York\/via Pictoright Amsterdam<\/p>\n

Situationism<\/p>\n

Every aesthetic movement needs a foil. For Modernism, it was Situationism. Promoted by avant-garde artists in Europe between the late 1950s and the early \u201970s, Situationism rejected Modernism\u2019s mass production and systematization in favor of \u201cthe unique and the incidental and the happenstance,\u201d Ali says. The style\u2019s most famous proponent, the French philosopher Guy Debord, defied conventional maps, going so far as to create (with the Danish artist Asger Jorn) a new map of Paris titled \u201cThe Naked City\u201d (1957), a collection of disjointed neighborhoods with arrows indicating people\u2019s drifting movements between them.<\/p>\n

These interviews have been edited and condensed.<\/p>\n

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