The Internationalism of Modernist Architecture

The Art, Architecture, and Engineering Library’s Special Collections contains a noteworthy collection of modernist architecture titles. Spurred by the donation of William Muschenheim’s collection of architecture books in 1982, the collection has grown significantly. 

This pop-up exhibit will focus on the internationalism of the Modernist movement of the late 1920s and 1930s seen through selected titles from the collection. While you’ll see expected titles by Le Corbusier and Bauhaus artists and architects published in France and Germany, you’ll also see translations and similar titles published in the United States, the Soviet Union, and Japan, as well as former eastern European countries. Internationally, modernism became known through repeated imagery and an aesthetic in which high contrast black and white photography expertly captured the iconic straight lines, smooth surfaces, and dark voids of the modernist buildings.

Join us in the Hatcher Gallery Lab (on your right as you enter the Gallery from the Hatcher Lobby) for Third Thursdays at the Library, a themed monthly open house where we share materials from our collections. While you’re here, visit each of the other Third Thursday Open Houses — Asia Library, Clark Library, International Studies, and Special Collections Research Center.