History of American Architecture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

History of American Architecture - Essay Example by and by World War II the style manifested itself in clean-lined, unadorned glass skyscrapers and mass housing projects. Modernist architects of the archeozoic and mid-twentieth century were semipolitically idealistic and radical. Their architecture expressed their faith that modernisation and progress would bring a better world.Modern architecture is a term given to a number of building styles with kindred characteristics, primarily the simplification of form and the elimination of ornament, that first arose well-nigh 1900. Around 1900, a number of architects around the world began developing new architectural solutions to integrate traditional precedents with new technological possibilities. By the forties these styles had been consolidated and identified as the International Style and became the dominant architectural style, particularly for institutional and corporal building, for several decades in the twentieth century. So me historians see the evolution of modern architecture as a social matter, closely tied to the project of Modernity and hence to the Enlightenment, a result of social and political revolutions. Others see modern architecture as primarily driven by technological and engineering developments, and its seemingly true that the availability of new building materials such as iron, steel, concrete and glass drove the plan of new building techniques as part of the Industrial Revolution. By the 1920s the most important figures in modern architecture had established their reputations. In 1932, the International Exhibition of Modern Architecture, curated by Philip Johnson and collaborator Henry-Russell Hitchcock move together many distinct threads and trends, identified them as stylistically similar and having a special K purpose, and consolidated them into the International Style. This was an important turning point. With World War II the important figures of the Bauhaus fled to the United States, to Chicago, to the Harvard fine-tune School of Design, and to Black Mountain College. Modernism became the pre-eminent, and then the only acceptable, design solution from approximately 1932 to about 1984. Modernist architecture became popular, because the ideal of progress was so widespread during the mid-twentieth century. Its gleaming glass, steel, and concrete buildings helped to spread the faith that engine room and planning could heal the sick, replace the slums with hygienic housing projects, and create affluence for all.What is Post-ModernismPostmodern architecture is an foreign style whose first examples are generally cited as being from the 1950s, and continues to influence present-day architecture. Postmodernity in architecture is generally thought to be heralded by the return of wit, ornament and reference to architecture in response to the formalism of the International Style of modernism. As with many cultural movements, some of postmodernisms most enuncia te and visible ideas can be seen in architecture. The functional and formalized shapes and spaces of the modernist movement are replaced by