This paper presents the physical formulation of a 1D material model suitable for seismic applications. It is written within the framework of thermodynamics with internal variables that is, especially, very efficient for the phenomenological representation of material behaviors at macroscale: those of the representative elementary volume. The model can reproduce the main characteristics observed for concrete, that is nonsymetric loading rate-dependent (viscoelasticity) behavior with appearance of permanent deformations and local hysteresis (continuum plasticity), stiffness degradation (continuum damage), cracking due to displacement localization (discrete plasticity or damage). The parameters have a clear physical meaning and can thus be easily identified. Although this point is not detailed in the paper, this material model is developed to be implemented in a finite element computer program. Therefore, for the benefit of the robustness of the numerical implementation, (i) linear state equations (no local iteration required) are defined whenever possible and (ii) the conditions in which the presented model can enter the generalized standard materials class – whose elements benefit from good global and local stability properties – are clearly established. To illustrate the capabilities of this model – among them for Earthquake Engineering applications – results of some numerical applications are presented.