International Style Incorporated: The Corporate Embrace of the Art of the Machine Age, 1950-1970
by Ike Edgerton
Faith in Technology
The future was bright. Sweeping highways, shining airplanes, glittering spires, unlimited nuclear power: the future was here. After World War Two, Americans believed fervently in the power of technology to improve their lives. Corporations therefore chose to build their new structures in the International Style, a modernist architectural movement that celebrated mass production, scientific progress, and mechanical efficiency.[1] The International Style matched exactly the forward-looking, technology-driven image of power and rationality that corporations sought to project and that people wanted to work for and buy from in the 1950s.[2] The movement's glorification of efficiency and industrial achievement was so seductive to corporations that they kept using it even as the promise of technology faded in the ensuing decades and public opinion soured against the corporate idea. Corporations shifted their emphasis, however, to a side of the movement they had previously ignored: by 1970, corporations were building offices that drew upon the International Style's drive to improve society and its highly-regarded artistic legacy in order to appear more progressive and culturally enlightened to a suspicious public.[3]
The future was bright. Sweeping highways, shining airplanes, glittering spires, unlimited nuclear power: the future was here. After World War Two, Americans believed fervently in the power of technology to improve their lives. Corporations therefore chose to build their new structures in the International Style, a modernist architectural movement that celebrated mass production, scientific progress, and mechanical efficiency.[1] The International Style matched exactly the forward-looking, technology-driven image of power and rationality that corporations sought to project and that people wanted to work for and buy from in the 1950s.[2] The movement's glorification of efficiency and industrial achievement was so seductive to corporations that they kept using it even as the promise of technology faded in the ensuing decades and public opinion soured against the corporate idea. Corporations shifted their emphasis, however, to a side of the movement they had previously ignored: by 1970, corporations were building offices that drew upon the International Style's drive to improve society and its highly-regarded artistic legacy in order to appear more progressive and culturally enlightened to a suspicious public.[3]
The International Style, a dynamic movement proclaiming the superiority of the machine aesthetic in architecture, emerged among the intellectual elite in Europe in the first decades of the twentieth century. They believed that the mass production of steel, concrete and glass imposed new requirements on builders: to think of buildings as volumes of space, not as masses of support structure; to be true to the regularity of their steel frames; to avoid applied decoration.[4] They believed that the forms of buildings, like the forms of the machines that produced them, must follow logically from their function and express fully the abilities of their materials.[5] The movement's leaders included Walter Gropius, whose 1910 Fagus shoe factory gained international acclaim for its glass expanses and functional purity, and Mies van der Rohe, whose 1921 vision of steel-skeletoned skyscrapers with glass skins galvanized architects with its bold application of technology and its dedication to the essence of its materials.[6] Practitioners envisioned a society made better -- more efficient, freer, healthier -- by rationally applying the revolutionary products of science and industry to the art of making buildings.[7]
Cubists and Futurists
The International Style emerged from the artistic chaos produced by an explosive epiphany at the turn of the century: machines had changed everything. The Cubists, taking for their example the railroad's ability to compress space, started folding space up in their paintings to depict multiple sides of objects simultaneously.[8] They turned the physical qualities of their paint and canvas into the subject of their paintings, foreshadowing the Style's desire to express the inherent nature of their materials.[9] Picasso's Les Demoiselles de Avignon, the painting that started the movement, fractures and flattens space, a violent challenge to the old vision of classical beauty and an inspiration for the Style's molding of space instead of mass.[10] The Futurists emerged soon after, with a blasting manifesto proclaiming the beauty of speed and the cleansing virtue of the machine.[11] Futurists believed that the dynamic power of a crowded, industrial world demands an aesthetic that responds "directly to utility," an infrastructure and an architecture that follows the machine's efficiency and the masses' demands, ideas that the creators of the International Style copied without modification.[12] The Italian Futurist Antonio Sant'Elia's drawings of sleek, stark cities centered around skyscrapers and multi-level traffic boldly illustrated their vision.[13] Together, Cubism and Futurism prophesied a machine-world that abandons archaic traditions, unites forms and functions, and drives relentlessly forward. This combination of radical ideas, translated and refined by Dutch and German modern architecture movements of De Stijl and Bauhaus, became codified as the International Style at a MoMA exhibition in 1932.[14]
The International Style emerged from the artistic chaos produced by an explosive epiphany at the turn of the century: machines had changed everything. The Cubists, taking for their example the railroad's ability to compress space, started folding space up in their paintings to depict multiple sides of objects simultaneously.[8] They turned the physical qualities of their paint and canvas into the subject of their paintings, foreshadowing the Style's desire to express the inherent nature of their materials.[9] Picasso's Les Demoiselles de Avignon, the painting that started the movement, fractures and flattens space, a violent challenge to the old vision of classical beauty and an inspiration for the Style's molding of space instead of mass.[10] The Futurists emerged soon after, with a blasting manifesto proclaiming the beauty of speed and the cleansing virtue of the machine.[11] Futurists believed that the dynamic power of a crowded, industrial world demands an aesthetic that responds "directly to utility," an infrastructure and an architecture that follows the machine's efficiency and the masses' demands, ideas that the creators of the International Style copied without modification.[12] The Italian Futurist Antonio Sant'Elia's drawings of sleek, stark cities centered around skyscrapers and multi-level traffic boldly illustrated their vision.[13] Together, Cubism and Futurism prophesied a machine-world that abandons archaic traditions, unites forms and functions, and drives relentlessly forward. This combination of radical ideas, translated and refined by Dutch and German modern architecture movements of De Stijl and Bauhaus, became codified as the International Style at a MoMA exhibition in 1932.[14]
Glass and Steel
This philosophy produced, between 1910 and 1930, a kind of building unprecedented outside of the efforts of engineers: buildings made with steel skeletons and glass skins, with concrete spans and streamlined aesthetics. To stay true to their buildings' function as spaces, architects emphasized the pure volume of their constructions with uninterrupted lines and simplified geometries.[15] To stay true to the mass-produced materials they used, they emphasized the efficiency, mechanical regularity, and clean lines that are the tell-tale mark of the factory and the assembly line. The resulting expanses of glass, steel and concrete that characterized the International Style created a powerful impression of dynamism and aggressive newness.
Better Living Through Technology
Architecture that expressed technological advance, speed, and power was just what American corporations wanted in the wake of World War Two, when science seemed to promise better living for all. In this pro-technology atmosphere, corporations emphasized the International Style's image of efficient technological power and ignored its dangerous social ideas. Thus imitating the famous German modernist Mies van der Rohe's elegant machine- architecture was most popular.
This philosophy produced, between 1910 and 1930, a kind of building unprecedented outside of the efforts of engineers: buildings made with steel skeletons and glass skins, with concrete spans and streamlined aesthetics. To stay true to their buildings' function as spaces, architects emphasized the pure volume of their constructions with uninterrupted lines and simplified geometries.[15] To stay true to the mass-produced materials they used, they emphasized the efficiency, mechanical regularity, and clean lines that are the tell-tale mark of the factory and the assembly line. The resulting expanses of glass, steel and concrete that characterized the International Style created a powerful impression of dynamism and aggressive newness.
Better Living Through Technology
Architecture that expressed technological advance, speed, and power was just what American corporations wanted in the wake of World War Two, when science seemed to promise better living for all. In this pro-technology atmosphere, corporations emphasized the International Style's image of efficient technological power and ignored its dangerous social ideas. Thus imitating the famous German modernist Mies van der Rohe's elegant machine- architecture was most popular.
Mies van der Rohe and General Motors
The General Motors Technical Center, designed by Eero Saarinen and completed in 1956, exemplifies this exuberant moment.[16] The Center's long, low, rectangular buildings are all built of steel frames with glass curtain-walls, the precise, regular products of factory production and steel construction. They directly echo the carefully proportioned steel honesty and classical dignity of Mies's work being built in Chicago in the 50s, especially his residential towers on Lake Shore Drive and his design for the IIT campus. [17]
The General Motors Technical Center, designed by Eero Saarinen and completed in 1956, exemplifies this exuberant moment.[16] The Center's long, low, rectangular buildings are all built of steel frames with glass curtain-walls, the precise, regular products of factory production and steel construction. They directly echo the carefully proportioned steel honesty and classical dignity of Mies's work being built in Chicago in the 50s, especially his residential towers on Lake Shore Drive and his design for the IIT campus. [17]
The Beautiful Machine
Like Mies's buildings, rational functionalism and the celebration of technology drives design decisions for the GM Center. Its function as a place for designing cars logically suggests its low, sprawling form, best seen from a moving car; its occupants' need for light and vistas logically demands that its walls be all glass.[18] The campus-like building complex is arranged asymmetrically around a large rectangular pool with a huge streamlined water tower in it, advertising the chromium forms of the company's jet-age vehicles and underlining the calculated machine aesthetic that dominates the design. The Technical Center is efficient and geometrical, the sprawling manifestation of technological progress. It uses Mies's clean and direct rendition of the International Style to enhance its image of progressive scientific achievement, monumental without frills or decoration.
Like Mies's buildings, rational functionalism and the celebration of technology drives design decisions for the GM Center. Its function as a place for designing cars logically suggests its low, sprawling form, best seen from a moving car; its occupants' need for light and vistas logically demands that its walls be all glass.[18] The campus-like building complex is arranged asymmetrically around a large rectangular pool with a huge streamlined water tower in it, advertising the chromium forms of the company's jet-age vehicles and underlining the calculated machine aesthetic that dominates the design. The Technical Center is efficient and geometrical, the sprawling manifestation of technological progress. It uses Mies's clean and direct rendition of the International Style to enhance its image of progressive scientific achievement, monumental without frills or decoration.
Borrowing Le Corbusier's Halo: Pepsico
As popular belief in the power of technology to improve society waned, and public opinion soured against corporations, companies responded by making buildings that tapped into a side of the International Style that they had previously ignored, commissioning structures that recalled the movement's commitment to social reform and its high culture merit. This meant channeling the spirit of the of the pioneering, socially conscious Swiss and French Modernist Le Corbusier.[19] Le Corbusier designed the UN building, and his paintings hung in the MoMA: by copying his design, a corporation could bask in the reflected glory of so much institutional and cultural recognition. The Pepsico World Headquarters, built in rolling parkland in Harrison, New York in 1970, strives to gain this reflected glory by copying his architecture.
As popular belief in the power of technology to improve society waned, and public opinion soured against corporations, companies responded by making buildings that tapped into a side of the International Style that they had previously ignored, commissioning structures that recalled the movement's commitment to social reform and its high culture merit. This meant channeling the spirit of the of the pioneering, socially conscious Swiss and French Modernist Le Corbusier.[19] Le Corbusier designed the UN building, and his paintings hung in the MoMA: by copying his design, a corporation could bask in the reflected glory of so much institutional and cultural recognition. The Pepsico World Headquarters, built in rolling parkland in Harrison, New York in 1970, strives to gain this reflected glory by copying his architecture.
Corbusier Clean
The Pepsico Headquarters employs International Style functionalism, building in concrete, glass, and steel, but its cubic modularity, white surfaces, ribbon windows and pastoral surroundings are all references to Le Corbusier's work, especially his famous French country house, the Villa Savoye, built in 1931.[20] The similarity is loaded with social reformist meaning. The Pepsico Headquarters' modular structure of seven connected cubes draws on Le Corbusier's interest in modularity, expressed in his invention of the "Modulor," a system of porportions relating to the size of the human body.[21] The Headquarters' long white rectangles strongly recall the Villa Savoye's iconic raised white block, channeling Le Corbusier's egalitarian view of color: he called it "the riches of the poor and the rich."[22] Pepsico also borrows its ribbon windows straight from the Villa Savoye. Le Corbusier believed that building concrete towers with ribbon windows in open parkland would make society healthier and more efficient by providing each man with his own aerie of light and space; Pepsico follows his advice by building its own ribbon-windowed, modular concrete structure on rolling pastoral grounds, forming its headquarters around a cross-shaped courtyard to maximize its occupants' access to light and air.[23] The Pepsico headquarters also uses Le Corbusier's clean style to subordinate the traces of industry to the traces of artistry: its smooth, uninterrupted surfaces are reminiscent of Le Corbusier's Purist paintings of the 1920s, in which he sought to smooth away the rough edges of cubism into continuous, sinuous forms.[24] This close association with the ideals and the artistry of the man who designed the UN building and whose paintings hang in the MoMA gives Pepsico a veneer of civilization and refinement.
The Pepsico Headquarters employs International Style functionalism, building in concrete, glass, and steel, but its cubic modularity, white surfaces, ribbon windows and pastoral surroundings are all references to Le Corbusier's work, especially his famous French country house, the Villa Savoye, built in 1931.[20] The similarity is loaded with social reformist meaning. The Pepsico Headquarters' modular structure of seven connected cubes draws on Le Corbusier's interest in modularity, expressed in his invention of the "Modulor," a system of porportions relating to the size of the human body.[21] The Headquarters' long white rectangles strongly recall the Villa Savoye's iconic raised white block, channeling Le Corbusier's egalitarian view of color: he called it "the riches of the poor and the rich."[22] Pepsico also borrows its ribbon windows straight from the Villa Savoye. Le Corbusier believed that building concrete towers with ribbon windows in open parkland would make society healthier and more efficient by providing each man with his own aerie of light and space; Pepsico follows his advice by building its own ribbon-windowed, modular concrete structure on rolling pastoral grounds, forming its headquarters around a cross-shaped courtyard to maximize its occupants' access to light and air.[23] The Pepsico headquarters also uses Le Corbusier's clean style to subordinate the traces of industry to the traces of artistry: its smooth, uninterrupted surfaces are reminiscent of Le Corbusier's Purist paintings of the 1920s, in which he sought to smooth away the rough edges of cubism into continuous, sinuous forms.[24] This close association with the ideals and the artistry of the man who designed the UN building and whose paintings hang in the MoMA gives Pepsico a veneer of civilization and refinement.
International Style Incorporated
The versatile International Style has served corporations well. When, after World War II, Americans thought technological progress would bring them a utopia, corporations used Modernism's dynamic expanses of glass and steel to underline their connection to the movement's forward drive. And when, by the 60s and 70s, the promise of industry faded, they used Modernism's smooth lines and effortless proportions to enhance their link to the movement's reforming vision and artistic importance. Clean, dynamic, European: the International Style, safely shorn of its radical significance, makes perfect sense for corporate construction in the suburbs.
Notes:
[1] Richard Weston, Modernism (London: Phaidon Press, 1996) 229.
[2] Weston 230; Peter G. Rowe, Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1991) 181.
[3] Rowe, 181.
[4] Henry Russel Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style (New York, London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995) 38.
[5] Hitchcock and Johnson 56, 70, 81.
[6] Walter Gropius, Fagus Factory, 1910, UNESCO Web site, JPEG image file, 2009, http://whc.unesco.org/uploads/thumbs/site_1368_0003-500-336-20110704165154.jpg (accessed November 6, 2012).; Mies van der Rohe, Friedrichstrasse Skyscraper Project, 1921, Museum of Modern Art Web site, JPEG image file, http://www.moma.org/collection_images/resized099/w500h420/CRI_11099.jpg (accessed November 6, 2012).
[7] Hasan-Uddin Khan, International Style: Modernist Architecture 1925-65 (Koln: Taschen, 1998) 7; Weston 204, 229.
[8] Reyner Banham, Age of the Masters: A Personal View of Modern Architecture (New York: Harper and Row, 1975) 51.
[9] Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (2nd Ed. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1996) 204.
[10] Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles de Avignon, 1907: Museum of Modern Art, New York.
[11] Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age 103.
[12] Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age 124.
[13] Antonio Sant'Elia, Central Station for Milan, 1914, in Nikolaus Pevsner, The Sources of Modern Architecture and Design (New York: Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, 1969) 190.
[14] Hitchcock and Johnson, 14; Museum of Modern Art Press Release Archives, "Exhibit of Modern Architecture Opens," Museum of Modern Art, http://www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/67/releases/ MOMA_1932_0004_1931-12-18.pdf?2010, 6 Nov. 2012.
[15] Weston, 119.
[16] Louise A. Mozingo, Pastoral Capitalism: A History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes (Cambridge, Mass; London: The MIT Press, 2011) 74-9.
[17] Peter Blake, The Master Builders: Le Corbusier, Mies Van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright (New York, London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996) 236, 116; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive, 1948-52, Flickr Web site, JPEG image file, 5 May 2012, http://www.flickr.com/photos/cerfon/7232431400/ (accessed October 21, 2012); Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Crown Hall, 1956, in Banham, Age of the Masters: A Personal View of Modern Architecture 128-9.
[18] Mozingo, 79.
[19] Mozingo, 137.
[20] Blake, 47.
[21] Blake, 32-3.
[22] Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age 218.
[23] Blake 93-5.
[24] Le Corbusier, Still Life, 1920, MoMA Web site, JPEG image file, http://www.moma.org/collection_images/ resized/765/w500h420/CRI_161765.jpg (accessed November 6, 2012).
The versatile International Style has served corporations well. When, after World War II, Americans thought technological progress would bring them a utopia, corporations used Modernism's dynamic expanses of glass and steel to underline their connection to the movement's forward drive. And when, by the 60s and 70s, the promise of industry faded, they used Modernism's smooth lines and effortless proportions to enhance their link to the movement's reforming vision and artistic importance. Clean, dynamic, European: the International Style, safely shorn of its radical significance, makes perfect sense for corporate construction in the suburbs.
Notes:
[1] Richard Weston, Modernism (London: Phaidon Press, 1996) 229.
[2] Weston 230; Peter G. Rowe, Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1991) 181.
[3] Rowe, 181.
[4] Henry Russel Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style (New York, London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995) 38.
[5] Hitchcock and Johnson 56, 70, 81.
[6] Walter Gropius, Fagus Factory, 1910, UNESCO Web site, JPEG image file, 2009, http://whc.unesco.org/uploads/thumbs/site_1368_0003-500-336-20110704165154.jpg (accessed November 6, 2012).; Mies van der Rohe, Friedrichstrasse Skyscraper Project, 1921, Museum of Modern Art Web site, JPEG image file, http://www.moma.org/collection_images/resized099/w500h420/CRI_11099.jpg (accessed November 6, 2012).
[7] Hasan-Uddin Khan, International Style: Modernist Architecture 1925-65 (Koln: Taschen, 1998) 7; Weston 204, 229.
[8] Reyner Banham, Age of the Masters: A Personal View of Modern Architecture (New York: Harper and Row, 1975) 51.
[9] Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (2nd Ed. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1996) 204.
[10] Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles de Avignon, 1907: Museum of Modern Art, New York.
[11] Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age 103.
[12] Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age 124.
[13] Antonio Sant'Elia, Central Station for Milan, 1914, in Nikolaus Pevsner, The Sources of Modern Architecture and Design (New York: Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, 1969) 190.
[14] Hitchcock and Johnson, 14; Museum of Modern Art Press Release Archives, "Exhibit of Modern Architecture Opens," Museum of Modern Art, http://www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/67/releases/ MOMA_1932_0004_1931-12-18.pdf?2010, 6 Nov. 2012.
[15] Weston, 119.
[16] Louise A. Mozingo, Pastoral Capitalism: A History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes (Cambridge, Mass; London: The MIT Press, 2011) 74-9.
[17] Peter Blake, The Master Builders: Le Corbusier, Mies Van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright (New York, London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996) 236, 116; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive, 1948-52, Flickr Web site, JPEG image file, 5 May 2012, http://www.flickr.com/photos/cerfon/7232431400/ (accessed October 21, 2012); Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Crown Hall, 1956, in Banham, Age of the Masters: A Personal View of Modern Architecture 128-9.
[18] Mozingo, 79.
[19] Mozingo, 137.
[20] Blake, 47.
[21] Blake, 32-3.
[22] Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age 218.
[23] Blake 93-5.
[24] Le Corbusier, Still Life, 1920, MoMA Web site, JPEG image file, http://www.moma.org/collection_images/ resized/765/w500h420/CRI_161765.jpg (accessed November 6, 2012).