The International Style grew out of three phenomena that confronted architects in the late 19th century: (1) architects' increasing dissatisfaction with the continued use of stylistically eclectic buildings—e.g., ones incorporating a mix of decorative elements from different architectural periods and styles that bore little or no relation to the building's functions; (2) the economical creation of large numbers of office buildings and other commercial, residential, and civic structures that served a rapidly industrializing society (Industrial Revolution); and (3) the development of new building technologies centring on the use of iron and steel, reinforced concrete, and glass. These three phenomena dictated the search for an honest, economical, and utilitarian architecture that would both use the new materials and satisfy society's new building needs while still appealing to aesthetic taste. Technology was a crucial factor; the new availability of cheap, mass-produced iron and steel and the discovery in the 1890s of those materials' effectiveness as primary structural members effectively rendered the old traditions of masonry (brick and stone) construction obsolete. The new use of steel-reinforced concrete as secondary support elements (floors, etc.) and of glass as sheathing for the exteriors of buildings completed the technology needed for modern building, and architects set about incorporating that technology into an architecture that openly recognized its new technical foundation. The International Style was thus formed under the dictates that modern buildings' form and appearance should naturally grow out of and express the potentialities of their materials and structural engineering. A harmony between artistic expression, function, and technology would thus be established in an austere and disciplined new architecture.

The International Style grew out of the work of a small group of brilliant and original architects in the 1920s who went on to achieve great influence in their field. These major figures included Walter Gropius (Gropius, Walter) and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig) in Germany and the United States, J.J.P. Oud in The Netherlands, Le Corbusier in France, and Richard Neutra and Philip Johnson in the United States.

Gropius and Mies were best known for their structures of glass curtain walls spanning steel girders that form the skeleton of the building. Important examples of Gropius' work are the Fagus Works (Alfeld-an-der-Leine, Ger.; 1911), the Bauhaus (Dessau, Ger.; 1925–26), and the Graduate Center at Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.; 1949–50)—all of which show his concern for uncluttered interior spaces. Mies van der Rohe and his followers in the United States, who did much to spread the International Style, are most clearly identified with glass-and-steel skyscrapers (skyscraper) such as the Lake Shore Drive Apartments (Chicago; 1949–51) and the Seagram Building, done jointly with Philip Johnson (New York City; 1958). Oud (Oud, Jacobus Johannes Pieter) helped to bring more rounded and flowing geometric shapes to the movement. Le Corbusier (Corbusier, Le), too, was interested in the freer treatment of reinforced concrete but added the concept of modular proportion in order to maintain a human scale in his work. Among his well-known works in the International Style is the Villa Savoye (Poissy, France; 1929–31).

In the 1930s and '40s the International Style spread from its base in Germany and France to North and South America, Scandinavia, Britain, and Japan. The clean, efficient, geometric qualities of the style came to form the basis of the architectural vocabulary of the skyscraper in the United States in the 1950s and '60s. The International Style provided an aesthetic rationale for the stripped-down, clean-surfaced skyscrapers that became the status symbols of American corporate power and progressiveness at this time.

By the 1970s, some architects and critics had begun to chafe at the constraints and limitations inherent in the International Style. The bare and denuded quality of the steel-and-glass “boxes” that embodied the style by then appeared stultifying and formulaic. The result was a reaction against modernist architecture and a renewed exploration of the possibilities of innovative design and decoration. Architects began creating freer, more imaginative structures that used modern building materials and decorative elements to create a variety of novel effects. This movement became prominent in the late 1970s and early '80s and became known as Postmodernism.