Machine Aesthetic

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Machine Aesthetic. Architecture that suggested something machine-made, acknowledging industrialization, mass-production, and engineering, or that used elements of metal structures (ships, aeroplanes, motorcars, etc.) in an eclectic fashion, more a matter of arriving at an appearance than of actually being what it seemed, a fact that contradicted demands for honesty and truth in architecture, and denied the logic of structural principles. International Modernism tended to use smooth wall-finishes and long strips of metal-framed windows suggested by ocean-going liners of the Titanic vintage, but the walls were often of rendered brickwork.

Bibliography

Architectural Review, lxxviii (Dec. 1935), 211–18;
R. Banham (1960);
Giedion (1969);
P. Johnson (1969);
Sparke (ed.) (1981);
Jane Turner (1996);
R. Wilson et al. (1986)