An Essay On....Exploring Western Architecture

Richard Neutra

The architectural styles of Western Europe and North America have evolved over centuries of cross-pollination of cultural progeny, each generation of architect reliant on the former for cues as to its bearings, for better or for worse, stretching back millennia.  The Modernist movement in architecture had within its ranks a superfluity of talented iconoclasts whom revised architectural history to suit the ideology of the bold new Modern designers of Europe, such as: Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Walter Gropius, to name a few.  Western architects of the 1920’s and 30’s saw a boon in their proliferation of this new style of modular construction, that promoted no ornament, and destined  the style to environments across the world, provoking the title ‘International Style’ .  By doing so, this style of architecture transcended regional pigeonholing and embraced the vast disparities between regional terrains, clients, national values, and civic identities. 

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