Modernism is also known as International style, because the buildings could be placed in nearly any urban landscape worldwide.

With their typical wide panes of glass, modernist buildings could be viewed as providing an envelope for the space they occupy.

Most traditional buildings constructed before the Modernist period were adorned with classically influenced ornamentation such as columns and friezes.

With modernism, symmetry gives way to regularity, which can be seen in the regular lines of windows. However, entrances are not always located in the middle of a wall.

Some modernist-influenced architects diverged from the strict modernist style of rectangular buildings with steel and glass facades and flat roofs.