There could be fewer more distinct edifices than the Le Corbusier designed Villa Savoye (1927), Poissy, France, and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, designed by Frank Gehry (1997) (See Image I & Image II). The clean, simple lines of Corbusier's Villa Savoye are characteristic of the International Style in architecture, versus the whimsical and playful Postmodern style of Gehry's Guggenheim design. Though the purity of Corbusier's design is characteristic of the International style of design in architecture, Gehry's Guggenheim design is much more characteristic of modern perspectives on architecture and its function and purpose. This analysis will compare and contrast the two designs in order to illustrate this argument. A conclusion will address how culture continues to impact design style in architecture.
In the works of Charles Edouard Jeanneret (better known as "Le Corbusier"), the elements of what is known as the International style in architecture are clearly visible. Le Corbusier's works often demonstrate enormous scale, rely on significant use of preformed concrete, and exhibit a purity that are all elements of the International style. His Villa Savoye in Poissy France clearly illustrates the use of these elements, but also Le Corbusier's typical style. Villa Savoye demonstrates Le Corbusier's typical style of raising a building on stilts, add a free-flowing floor plan, create walls independent of the structure, and add a horizontal strip of windows (Villa 1). As Jencks (328) maintains of Le Corbusier's structure, they stand "awkwardly and heroically apart from nature much as a Greek temple proclaiming man's loneliness and independence from the cosmos." Part of this loneliness stems from the lost generation era after WWI that questioned Godhead and man's relationship to it. There is something straightforward and plain in Villa Savoye's design that is in stark contrast to the flamboyant and wh...