Although the word “modernism” is commonly used today to refer to twentieth-century modern architecture, its occurrence was rare in the first half of that century. Instead, a variety of terms were used, including Neues Bauen, Nieuwe Bouwen, Architettura Razionale, “Modern Architecture”, and “Modern Movement”, reflecting the values and emphases of its various proponents. This essay gives a brief history of the evolution of the vocabulary employed to describe modern architecture during the 1920s and 1930s, and then proposes several reasons for the shift in vocabulary that began to occur after the rise of postmodern architecture.

Histories of Postwar Architecture, Issue 0 (2017)