Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow International Style: Carry floors on columns so plan and facade both stay free
- Type
- Set in International Style's manner (Align sans serif signs to the column grid, flush with the wall), and let New Formalism's lettering (Place a modest, orderly title on the main axis and relate its spacing to the columns) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in International Style's material (Steel and concrete frame, white rendered planes, large sheets of glass); bring in exactly one thing from New Formalism (Combine pale smooth stone or concrete, slender screens and a restrained reflective surface).
- Colour
- Build on #eeece5, #9ca3a5, #252729 and admit one accent from #E3E0D6, #7B9B9C, #38484A.
Where they fight
- International Style and New Formalism both belong to Modern Architecture, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- International Style A white box alone misses the structure, free plan, industrial materials and social program, and ornament stripped without tuned proportion and detail reads as cheapness, leaving openings with no reason for their position.
- New Formalism Symmetry alone is insufficient. Look for classical order translated into modern construction, and distinguish this architecture from pre-war Stripped Classicism and the literary movement of the same name.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from International Style (style, 1920s–1960s) and their accent from New Formalism (style, 1955–1975). ## What to make Make the kind of thing International Style exists for: corporate headquarters and civic buildings that must earn trust through proportion, not ornament, or long life offices and galleries whose partitions move as programs change. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from International Style - Rectangular volumes - Glass planes - No ornament - The free plan Composition: Carry floors on columns so plan and facade both stay free. Type and lettering: Align sans serif signs to the column grid, flush with the wall. ## Accent comes from New Formalism, used sparingly - A symmetrical single volume on a raised base - Repeated slender columns or arches - A broad flat roof over geometric screens - Smooth stone or concrete with sculptural thin structures Let one material quality come from it: Combine pale smooth stone or concrete, slender screens and a restrained reflective surface. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #eeece5, carry the structure in #9ca3a5 and #252729, and let a single accent come from #7B9B9C. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: trust, calm, futurity, luxury. ## Where they fight - International Style and New Formalism both belong to Modern Architecture, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. ## What goes wrong - International Style: A white box alone misses the structure, free plan, industrial materials and social program, and ornament stripped without tuned proportion and detail reads as cheapness, leaving openings with no reason for their position. - New Formalism: Symmetry alone is insufficient. Look for classical order translated into modern construction, and distinguish this architecture from pre-war Stripped Classicism and the literary movement of the same name. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- International Style 1920s–1960s / Style / Modern Architecture
Strips ornament and aims at a universal architectural language crossing borders: the box, the free plan, steel, concrete and glass.
- New Formalism 1955–1975 / Style / Modern Architecture
An American architectural style of the mid-1950s through the 1970s that recast classical order in modern structures. Symmetrical masses, colonnades, raised bases and patterned screens make ceremonial fronts for civic and commercial buildings. Its monumentality comes from modern proportions and repeated slender forms rather than a literal reconstruction of an ancient order.
Share this composition:https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=international-style+new-formalism