Boyd wrote this article after returning from his first trip to Europe in 1950 as part of his Haddon Scholarship. In it he reflects on the mood and character of postwar architecture in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Ireland and Scandinavia. This last location, especially Sweden, interests Boyd, largely because of The Architectural Review’s coining of the term ‘New Empiricism’ in the 1940s to describe recent architecture in Denmark and Sweden. Boyd tells of his experience in visiting such buildings and in talking to Swedish architects who are not happy with the term: “There is hardly one first-class architect left who does not regret it now”. Boyd tells of finding details and elements that suggest folksy, nationalistic references and is disturbed. He observes though that now in Sweden, “The schools are permitting no nonsense from students and are strictly back on the straight and narrow of functionalism.” While in 1947, Boyd had argued for a regional ‘Victorian Type’ of house, the 1950 trip confirms for him the need to continue internationalism in architecture and that architects should not exaggerate “regional habits of structure and detail”: hence his article’s title, ‘The New International’.