Modernism in architecture is the 20th-century movement that rejected ornament, embraced industrial materials, and reshaped cities according to the principle 'form follows function'.
Modernism in architecture emerged in the early 20th century from converging strands: the structural honesty of the Chicago school (Sullivan, Wright), the social mission of the German Werkbund and the Bauhaus, Le Corbusier's 'Five Points of a New Architecture' (1926), and the engineering of reinforced concrete and steel-frame construction. Walter Gropius's Bauhaus building at Dessau (1926), Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye (1931), and Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion (1929) defined the new vocabulary: rectangular volumes, strip windows, pilotis lifting the building from the ground, flat roofs, and a conscious refusal of historical ornament. The 1932 Museum of Modern Art exhibition curated by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson coined the 'International Style' for the new architecture. After World War II, modernism became the global default for corporate headquarters, social housing, and civic buildings. Its hubris — the belief that single architectural visions could solve urban problems — provoked the postmodern backlash of the 1970s, but the modernist vocabulary remains foundational to contemporary architecture.