International Style

noun

1
: a style in European art of the 14th and early 15th centuries marked by sinuous line, rich color, and decorative surface detail
2
: a style in architecture developed in the 1920s that uses modern materials (such as steel, glass, and reinforced concrete), expresses structure directly, and eliminates nonstructural ornament

Examples of International Style in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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The birthplace of international diplomacy, the United Nations became the first major building in New York to represent International Style architecture. Linne Halpern, Architectural Digest, 21 Nov. 2024 Notable modernists include Virginia Woolf (stream-of-consciousness novels), Pablo Picasso (cubism), Arnold Schoenberg (twelve-tone technique), and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (International Style architecture). Hazlitt, 10 Apr. 2024 After years serving other purposes and with the interior not having been treated well, the 1961 International Style building needed its terrazzo floors resurrected. John Oseid, Forbes, 28 Mar. 2024 The 1936 International Style home between The Country Club Plaza and Loose Park has both. Cynthia Billhartz Gregorian, Kansas City Star, 31 Jan. 2024 The typical new residential tower, for the previous 30 years or so, had been built in the International Style, efficiently sheathed in glazed brick, typically brown or white or pale gray, in relatively characterless imitation of the handmade Bauhaus aesthetic. Curbed, 2 Oct. 2023 Designed by Gordon Bunshaft and Natalie de Blois, the prophets of SOM’s International Style aesthetic, Lever House was the first office tower in America with glass curtain walls on all four sides. Curbed, 9 June 2023 Casa Lever sits on the ground floor of Lever House, a pioneering International Style office building designed by SOM’s Gordon Bunshaft and Natalie de Blois and completed in 1952. ELLE Decor, 9 June 2023 Le Méridien hotel, based in the historic Melrose Building which was completed in 1952 as Houston’s first International Style skyscraper. Robin Soslow, Chron, 10 May 2022

Word History

First Known Use

1911, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of International Style was in 1911

Dictionary Entries Near International Style

Cite this Entry

“International Style.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/International%20Style. Accessed 22 Dec. 2024.

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