This kind of new architecture embodied the classic and simple shapes of geometry, and followed the idea that every item would serve a function. Thus there would be absolutely no decorations. Bauhaus buildings have flat roofs, smooth facades and cubic shapes. Simple metals were used, such as steel and iron, and basic colors of black, white, and grays were used. This "International Style" came to embody capitalism, since it favored huge glass and steel office buildings, such as the Seagram Building (1957) pictured below, by Mies van der Rohe along with Phillip Johnson. He developed a building with an internal steel structure, surrounded by a non-bearing "curtain" or covering, usually made of glass, thus the glass-box skyscraper. .
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(Seagram Building, 1952).
This building was quite a piece of work. It is generally recognized as the finest skyscraper designed and built in the International Style. The building has very elegant proportions. It is set ninety feet away from the main road, with thirty feet of space on either side. It is thirty-eight stories high. The tinted-glass and bronze "I-beams" give the building its character. The "I-beams" were attached to mullions to emphasize the height and verticality. Another example we have of the "office buildings" is the Lever House, also on Park Avenue in New York. Although it was not designed by one of the Functionalists, it is one of the first high-rise buildings in the International Style. It was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP, and completed in 1952. It sits on the north side of corporate Park Avenue, and embodies the International Style with its functionalist form of steel and glass. It was also the first skyscraper to be built despite the new zoning regulations of the city and was the first curtain wall structure in the city. It was thus the "curtain-wall pioneer" of New York City. .
(Lever Building, 1952).
