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 Tropical Modernism's lettering (Place signs in the shade of the eaves so glare never blanks them) 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 Tropical Modernism (Concrete louvers, perforated terracotta blocks, timber shutters that breathe).
- Colour
- Build on #eeece5, #9ca3a5, #252729 and admit one accent from #e2dfcc, #779173, #48514a.
Where they fight
- International Style and Tropical Modernism 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.
- Tropical Modernism Louvers and canopies added as shapes, with no calculation of orientation and sun angles, stop neither sun nor rain. Look past a tropical look to colonial rule, nation building after independence and local architects.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from International Style (style, 1920s–1960s) and their accent from Tropical Modernism (style, 1940s–1970s). ## 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 Tropical Modernism, used sparingly - Brise-soleil - Deep eaves - Cross-ventilation - Permeable screens Let one material quality come from it: Concrete louvers, perforated terracotta blocks, timber shutters that breathe. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #eeece5, carry the structure in #9ca3a5 and #252729, and let a single accent come from #779173. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: trust, calm, futurity. ## Where they fight - International Style and Tropical Modernism 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. - Tropical Modernism: Louvers and canopies added as shapes, with no calculation of orientation and sun angles, stop neither sun nor rain. Look past a tropical look to colonial rule, nation building after independence and local architects. ## 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.
- Tropical Modernism 1940s–1970s / Style / Modern Architecture
Adapts modern architecture to hot, humid climates through canopies, louvers, ventilation and sun control.
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