What is the International Typographic style?

Why was architect Erich Mendelsohn not considered International Style?

• I'm reading the book 'Erich Mendelsohn' in the Taschen architecture series. It says that his architecture was 'Expressionist' but because of this it did not fall into 'International Style'. Can anyone please explain this to me? I would have thought that buildings such as the De La Warr Pavilion would have been stuck firmly within the International Style / Modernist. If I google his name and 'International Style' I get lots of pages confirming that he was of this genre, including wikipedia. So, who is right?

• Answer:

  It's simple. There's no universally agreed definition of 'International Style'. Like most art-historical terms, it's fuzzy at the edges. Though any serious art historian who placed the Einstein Tower in the International Style would have to put it right on the fuzziest edge. Actually, it's not that simple. Not all of Mendelsohn's work was Expressionist. The Schocken store is clearly International Style. Then there's the basic question of how much fuzziness we should put up with. In this case, if we class the Mossehaus as International Style, we have to ignore a basic rule of the style, which is that 'form follows function' (it clearly doesn't in parts of the Mossehaus). This takes away the point of having these labels: they're only useful if they correspond to the various attempts, from William Morris onwards, to establish new types of architecture around specific principles. If the different labels get confused, it means the principles (which are the things that matter) are being ignored. By the way, 'Modernist' (very broad term) includes, but is different from, 'International Style'.