The Story: Modern Architecture

Modern Architecture

The importance of materials of construction, social values and function in architecture are evident. Our discovery of materials such as wood, stone and metal for construction defined much of the early and classical period. A hallmark of modern architecture is the glass and steel used in skyscrapers lining metropolitan cities. Clean lines devoid of ornamentation and decoration.

The industrial revolution as a turning point in the premodern period helped to raise a debate on decoration and its purpose in architecture. On the one side there were those who had come to regard decoration as the principle part of architecture. Others questioned this due to the growing emphasis on machinery and a new sense of function, which it was creating in social life. Industrialization and over crowding also brought poverty and a growing working class who found no purpose in art and decoration. The working class became an increasingly secular society to which the religious nature of Gothic architectural theory no longer had an appeal.

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