Initially produced as the catalog to accompany a controversial and groundbreaking 1932 Museum of Modern Art show of the then new architecture emerging in Europe and America, The International Style quickly became the definitive statement of the principles underlying the work of such giants as Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and other pioneers. It might be said that Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson discovered as well as defined "the International Style," and over the decades their book has served as both a flashpoint for criticism and a frame for growth in the architectural profession. It has never been out of print in over sixty years. This new edition has been completely redesigned and reset, and it features a new foreword by Philip Johnson, who reflects on the legacy of the International Style and examines the still-precarious power of architecture in our public life.

This work sets out to describe the aesthetic qualities intrinsic to the work of such architects as Le Corbusier, Oud, Gropius and Mies van der Rohe. The authors observed the distinguishing features that made possible a definition of a new "style": emphasis on volume as opposed to mass; regularity as opposed to symmetry; and dependence on the intrinsic elegance of materials as opposed to applied decoration. First published in 1932 to coincide with an architectural exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, this reissue contains a new foreword by Philip Johnson reflecting on the impact of these principles over 60 years after they were first set forth.