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John Hill
Houzz Contributor.
The Museum of Modern Art’s 1932 exhibition “The International Style: Architecture Since 1922,” curated by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, set aside social ideals and promoted modern architecture as a style. Now-familiar elements like horizontal ribbon windows, flat roofs and planar, unadorned walls prevailed in the primarily European examples collected for the exhibition and companion book.
Planar walls were often accomplished with a bit deception: Walls of brick or some other material were often whitewashed or covered with stucco and painted white. This gave the buildings the appearance of machinelike precision, but they were closer to traditional methods of production than the industrial, assembly-line products (cars, ships) that many of the architects appreciated and emulated.The Museum of Modern Art’s 1932 exhibition “The International Style: Architecture Since 1922,” curated by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, set aside social ideals and promoted modern architecture as a style. Now-familiar elements like horizontal ribbon windows, flat roofs and planar, unadorned walls prevailed in the primarily European examples collected for the exhibition and companion book.
Architects have many more materials at their disposal today to achieve the clean lines of modern architecture, but stucco still finds a place, especially in climates conducive to it, such as California or the desert Southwest. Yet the homogeneity of last century’s International style is eschewed in favor of modern forms balanced with vernacular considerations, such as climate, views and color. Stucco is often also used alongside other materials on the exterior surface.