Background

Buildings in this architectural style were constructed mainly in Europe and North America. After the destruction of many historic buildings in Europe during World War II, repairing them was a difficult matter. Architects had to decide between replicating the historic elements or replacing it with new modern materials and aesthetics.

The scientific and technological advances had a big impact on societies in the 1970s. The Space Race climaxed in 1969 with Neil Armstrong's landing on the moon, and came along with excessive military developments. These advances set people's minds thinking that much more can be achieved with advancing technology. Technological instruments became a common sight for people at the time because of the use of ramps, video screens, headphones, and bare scaffolds. These high-tech constructions became more visible everyday to the average person.

There was a growing disillusionment with Modern Architecture and progression in that manner. The realisation of Le Corbusier’s urban development plans, led to cities of dreadful monotony. Many houses were to made form standardized parts. This played a large role in the monotony. The enthusiasm for economic building led to extremely low quality finishes of the buildings. Many of the residential estates designed degenerated into slums. As a result people became disillusioned with this progress and the West began to acknowledge this failure.

Throughout Modern Architecture’s developemennt, society would have become bored of the Modern aesthetic. This is to be expected given that the Modern buildings were very bland and the novelty of its aesthetic would wear off. Hi-Tech is a response to this to take Modernist aims to other extremes and in doing so, it creates a newer aesthetic: boasting the glamour of greater leaps in technology.

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The style got its name from the book High Tech: The Industrial Style and Source Book for The Home, written by design journalists Joan Kron and Suzanne Slesin and published in November 1978 by Clarkson N. Potter, New York. The book, illustrated with hundreds of photos, showed how designers, architects, and home owners were appropriating classic industrial objects—library shelving, chemical glass, metal deck plate, restaurant supply, factory and airport runway light fixtures, movers' quilts, industrial carpeting etc.—found in industrial catalogues and putting these to use in residential settings. The foreword to the book by architect Emilio Ambasz, former curator of design at the Museum of Modern Art, put the trend in historical context.

As a result of the publicity and popularity of the book, the decorating style became known as "High-Tech", and accelerated the entry of the still-obscure term "high-tech" into everyday language. In 1979, the term high-tech appeared for the first time in a New Yorker magazine cartoon showing a woman berating her husband for not being high-tech enough: "You're middle-, middle-, middle-tech." After Esquire excerpted Kron and Slesin's book in six installments, mainstream retailers across the United States, beginning with Macy's New York, started featuring high-tech decor in windows and in furniture departments. But credit should go to a shop on 64th Street and Lexington Avenue in New York, Ad Hoc Housewares, which opened in 1977, for marketing these objects to a residential audience before anyone else. The book went on to be reprinted in England, France, and Japan, and like the original, each edition included a directory of local sources for the objects.

The other name, Late Modernism, came from the fact the many of its principles were an extension of Modernism; a newer kind.