International Style
Article
International Style is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between December 04, 2024 and December 05, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “one of the first great International Style skyscrapers”; “the International Style was finishing off the demand for it”; “To those who complained that International Style buildings were cramped”. It most often appears alongside Bauhaus, Beaux-Arts, From Bauhaus To Our House.
Metadata
- Category: Concepts
- Mention count: 2
- Issue count: 2
- First seen: December 04, 2024
- Last seen: December 05, 2024
Appears In
Related Pages
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- Bauhaus (2 shared issues)
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- Beaux-Arts (2 shared issues)
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- From Bauhaus To Our House (2 shared issues)
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- 3D printing (1 shared issues)
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- @dieworkwear (1 shared issues)
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- Abercrombie & Fitch (1 shared issues)
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- AI (1 shared issues)
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- AI Art Turing Test (1 shared issues)
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- Aldo Rossi (1 shared issues)
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- Alessandro Menini (1 shared issues)
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- America (1 shared issues)
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- Architectural League of New York (1 shared issues)
External Links
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
The problem was alienation - the people designing the buildings weren’t the ones residing in them - or, in many cases, even viewing them as they walked by. Wolfe thinks that the people with the most exposure were least happy with the results. Here’s his discussion of the Seagram Building, one of the first great International Style skyscrapers:
To those philistines who were still so gauche as to say that the new architecture lacked the richness of detail of the old Beaux-Arts architecture … [the modernists] would say with considerable condescension: “Fine. You produce the craftsmen who can do that kind of work, and then we’ll talk to you about it. They don’t exist anymore.” True enough. But why? Henry Hope Reed tells of riding across West Fifty-third Street in New York in the 1940s in a car with some employees of E.F. Caldwell & Co, a firm that specialized in bronze work and electrical fixtures. As the car passed the Museum of Modern Art building, the men began shaking their fists at it and shouting: “That goddamn place is destroying us! Those bastards are killing us!” In the palmy days of Beaux-Arts architecture, Caldwell had employed a thousand bronzeurs, marble workers, model makers, and designers. Now the company was sliding into insolvency, along with many similar firms. It was not that craftsmanship was dying. Rather, the International Style was finishing off the demand for it, particularly in commercial construction.
To those who complained that International Style buildings were cramped, had flimsy walls inside as well as out, and, in general, looked cheap, the knowing response was “These days it’s too expensive to build in any other style”. But it was not too expensive, merely more expensive. The critical point was what people would or would not put up with aesthetically. It was possible to build in styles even cheaper than the International Style. For example, England began to experiment with schools and public housing constructed like airplane hangars, out of corrugated medal tethered by guy wires. Their architects also said: “These days it’s too expensive to build in any other style.” Perhaps one day soon everyone (tout le monde) would learn to take this, too, like a man.
Taste seems to constantly change. In 1930, all the sophisticated people said that Beaux-Arts architecture was very tasteful. In 1950, they’d laugh at you if you built Beaux-Arts; everyone with good taste was into International Style. This is very suspicious! Human universals don’t change that fast! Rules about what is vs. isn’t “jarring” don’t change that fast! Only fashion changes that fast!