Glass has become a defining architectural material through the centuries, bringing light, transparency and spatial quality into buildings. From small coloured panes to fully glazed facades, the use of glass always reflects the technical possibilities and aesthetic ideals of its time.
Application
In the Gothic period (from the 12th century onwards) stained glass reached a peak. The large leaded windows of cathedrals, such as those at Chartres, filled the church interior with coloured light and told Biblical stories to a largely illiterate public. Slender buttresses and pointed arches allowed for ever larger window openings.
A turning point came in 1851 with the Crystal Palace in London, designed by Joseph Paxton for the Great Exhibition. This vast structure of cast iron and glass demonstrated that glass could be used on a large scale as a structural and space-forming material.
In the 20th century the modern glass facade, or curtain wall, developed: a non-load-bearing outer wall of glass suspended from the structure. Modernist architects, such as Mies van der Rohe, used transparency and clarity as a central architectural device. Glass construction made possible light, open buildings in which inside and outside merge visually.
Today glass is indispensable in architecture, with high-performance glazing combining transparency with insulation, solar control and safety.
Related terms
- glass
- building glass
- stained glass
- leaded glass
- curtain wall
- glass construction
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