From architecture and allied arts to international style: Architectural exhibitions in New York, 1925--1932

This essay examines architectural exhibitions in New York between 1925 and 1932. Focused on the different aesthetic attitudes promoted through display, the study traces the design modes that underwent significant change in this period, from extensively using historical forms to favoring a single new style, and from embracing aesthetic merits contributed by various decorative branches to isolating architecture from its peripheral areas. Framed by the Exposition of Architecture and Allied Arts held in 1925 and the International Exhibition of Modern Architecture in 1932, these changes substantially determined the content and format of the displays. The exhibits also reflected the effort to increase architectural publicity, which evoked the debate between popularizing architecture through commercial involvement and maintaining the integrity of professionalism.; The study also reviews the exhibits that highlighted aesthetic experimentation in industrial design employed for architectural purposes, as well as the exhibits that introduced European modernist architecture to an American audience in the pre-international style era, leading to a re-evaluation of the 1932 International Exhibition of Modern Architecture.