Modern architecture, new architectural style has emerged in many countries around the world, based on the "rational" use of modern materials, the principles of functionalist planning and the rejection of historical precedent and ornament. This style has been generally designated as modern, although the labels International style and functionalism have also been used. More varied and individual, as well as regionalist.

Modes of expression were sought by architects of the next generation, although the basic emphasis on structure and materials continued, architects have become more concerned with context and tradition. Ornament, once banished by modernism, has returned, often in the form of overtly historical revivalism, although it has just as often been reinterpreted in high-tech materials. This has resulted in a stylistic eclecticism on the contemporary scene.

There was an increasingly wide understanding that building forms must be determined by their functions and materials if they were to achieve intrinsic significance or beauty in contemporary terms, without resorting to traditional ornament. Instead of viewing a building as a heavy mass made of ponderous materials, the leading innovators of modern architecture considered it as a volume of space enclosed by light, thin curtain walls and resting on slender piers.

The visual aesthetic of modern architecture was largely inspired by the machine and by abstract painting and sculpture.