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New Formalism (architecture)

{{Short description|Late modernist style of architecture}}

File:LA Music Center Mark Taper Forum.jpg, Los Angeles, designed by Welton Becket and Associates, 1967]]

File:The World Trade Center in New York City, July 28, 2000.jpg original World Trade Center in New York City, designed by Minoru Yamasaki with Emery Roth & Sons associates]]

New Formalism is an architectural style that emerged in the United States during the mid-1950s and flowered in the 1960s. Buildings designed in that style exhibited many Classical elements including "strict symmetrical elevations"Wiffen, Marcus, American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles, The M.I.T. Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1969 building proportion and scale, Classical columns, highly stylized entablatures and colonnades. The style was used primarily for high-profile cultural, high tech, institutional and civic buildings. Edward Durrell Stone's New Delhi American Embassy (1954), which blended the architecture of the east with modern western concepts, is considered to be the symbolic start of New Formalism architecture.{{cite web|url=http://www.fullertonheritage.org/Resources/archstyles/formalism.htm|title=Architectural Styles in Fullerton: New Formalism|work=fullertonheritage.org|access-date=2014-12-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171129113243/http://www.fullertonheritage.org/Resources/archstyles/formalism.htm|archive-date=2017-11-29|url-status=dead}}

Common features of the New Formalism style include:

  • Use of traditionally rich materials such as travertine, marble, and granite or man-made materials that mimic their luxurious qualities
  • Buildings usually set on a podium
  • Designed to achieve modern monumentality
  • Embraces classical precedents, such as arches, colonnades, classical columns and entablatures
  • Smooth wall surfaces
  • Delicacy of details
  • Formal landscape; use of pools, fountains, and a sculpture within a central plaza

Origins and Principles

File:US Embassy New Delhi.jpg, designed by Edward Durell Stone, features a grille wrapping around the building that serves as decoration and a filter for the sun.]]

Born as a rejection of the rigidity of Modernism, New Formalism attempted to wed Classical architectural with concrete's ability to take on fluid, expressive forms to create new shapes such as umbrella shells, waffle slabs and folded plates. Early innovators of this style, such as Edward Durell Stone, believed that International Style's focus on function was not enough and that buildings must put a greater or equal value on aesthetic beauty. In 1958, Stone famously called for a re-examination of classical and ancient artistic traditions in a Time magazine interview in which he stated, “What we need is to put pure beauty into our buildings.”{{Cite web |last=TIME |date=1958-03-31 |title=Art: More Than Modern |url=https://time.com/archive/6870652/art-more-than-modern/ |access-date=2025-04-17 |website=TIME |language=en}}

Stone's rejection of the glass facades in favor of arabesque grilles are clear to see in the US Embassy in New Delhi, opened in 1959. In addition to grilles or screens instead of glass and exterior walls made of exotic material, New Formalist structures have a carefully organized hierarchy of space, and an emphasis is placed on the structural grid of the building.{{Cite web |date=2011-05-27 |title=New Formalism |url=https://dahp.wa.gov/historic-preservation/historic-buildings/architectural-style-guide/new-formalism#:~:text=Sometimes%20called%20%E2%80%9CNeo%20Palladianism%E2%80%9D,,by%20advances%20in%20building%20technology. |access-date=2025-04-17 |website=Washington State Department of Archaeology & Historic Preservation (DAHP) |language=en}}

Notable architects

Notable examples

File:Lincoln Center by Matthew Bisanz.JPG]]

File:Grand Istiqlal Mosque.jpg|alt=]]

References

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Category:20th-century architectural styles

Category:American architectural styles

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Category:Architectural history