Neomodern

Neomodernism is a late twentieth-century return to the simplicity of modernism, rising in reaction to the complexity of postmodern architecture and historicist eclecticism. Its buildings - above all corporate offices - are monolithic and functional, stripped of classical ornament and pastiche, with rationalism, calculation, and utility driving the aesthetic experience. The idea of a "new architecture" has older roots: scholars trace it to Le Corbusier's Vers une Architecture (1923) and its vision of crystalline towers. In 1997 the painter Guy Denning founded the Neomodern artist group on the premise that state-supported institutions were stifling contemporary art; the group shares no single style but leans toward direct figurative painting. The name has since been claimed by parallel currents, from Slovak national neomodernism to corporate modernist building.

Defining characteristics

• Unadorned glass, steel, and concrete surfaces with classical ornament stripped away
• Monolithic, functional massing: simple volumes, few applied details
• Rational, geometric planning where proportion and calculation shape the aesthetic
• Refusal of historicist quotation and eclectic pastiche
• Crystalline, repetitive facade grids in the lineage of the modernist tower
• In the artist group's work: a bias toward direct figurative painting

Key figures

• Le Corbusier (1887-1965) — Modernist pioneer whose Vers une Architecture seeded the call for a new rational architecture
• Guy Denning (1965-) — Painter who founded the Neomodern artist group in 1997

Example works

• Bay Adelaide Centre (West Tower) (2009)

Sources

• Neomodern - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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