Effect in the architecture
One of the important key-materials of the modern design and architecture beside steel and concrete is surely the glass. But how modern the material presents itself, it has an old history. Over millennia, it has accompanied the human being as a valuable element with different use-areas. Its shine and its transparency have fascinated them from the beginning, as they could take it in there hands. In the architecture, it was already contributed to the transparent clasp of openings early. Exactly because windows are called the eyes of the architecture rightly, the glass could work decisively for the art-style of different periods.
But of course, the technological development didn't stand alone. Many aspects are responsible in the architecture for forming a art-style. The human being came from places of natural protection and had to manage themselves a second built skin. On this occasion, different ideas shaped him. Surely, the security-feeling figurative from the natural protection-constructions has had a high meaning. This can have been adopted as colour, material, bearings, illumination-intensity or in similar as well as further abstracted forms. That means that wearing dresses over the construction and the fa?ade is as old as other ways of design. Because of that, it is as sincere as a constructive design. But beside all this elements stands the available construction-material and its technical possibilities at dominant position to disposal. For new developments it may be the most important way.
Material opens through its technical possibilities and restrictions as one of the most popular operations the way for a good design. It has the same meaning in architecture. Property's design participates from the combination of different materials and their joins-principles. As first reason for it, the individuality of the material stands actually. The technical knowledge of the respective time form the basis. In order to give this principle its right, this article is structured after the technical manufacture of the glass. The knowledge about these technologies decides to handle the manner of the material.
This contribution concentrates on the European view. It is no investigation over the developments in China, which could be shown also as an interesting issue. But here, the view-manner should be introduced from another cultural background. That's legal, because it explains the sense to invite guests with a contribution to a topic of general interest.
The different possibilities of the glass, especially in the architecture, should be shown. The most glass is put in there. In the buildings it has a special meaning. Because it could be produced disk-shaped and could simultaneously transparent, it was predestined about to close the openings, especially the windows. It protects from the rigors of the weather and grants outlook at the same time.
The outside - and interiors views are possible with the help of glass. During the day people from inside can observe the changes in the nature and the surrounding. In the night, the principle turns around. Instead of the outlook, the insight is possible through the illuminated interior. For the side without view the windows are respective at that moment black. They are completely gloomy and with it anything else than transparent.
With the exact look, the transparency is only given restricted. If the observer wants really to experience transparency during the day, another window must be on the side lying opposite to his view . If there is no second transparent opening, the glass-surface is black for him.
In the technical sense, glass offers further possibilities. Because it can change the light-waves, this has consequences for the heating, or the colour-like shaping of the light. Winter-gardens and some special types of atria use these qualities, similarly solar-installations. Also for the denotation of loads - draft, pressure, snap - it can be used.
However beside this frank physical legalities simple arranges glass moreover further has some heavily to calculate effects. For example reflections appear unconsciously. Additionally, changing shadows originate together with the light. They can have a mirror-effect, which is different with the light, they get. For this reason, Mario Botta said on the occasion of a lecture in Dessau in the year 2000, that glass-surfaces arrange him discomfort. The unpredictability of the material reminds him to use this material with caution, never to dominant. His architecture with the repressed windows frequently expresses this stand and his caution very well.
It leads our eyes on a problem, that many occupation-colleagues handle more inconsiderately. The simple and however so serious realisation of the glass-effects is not heeded by architects in its effect for the area frequently. Often, when someone speaks from transparency, a black surface would have been drawn in his sketch more honestly. They speak of transparency and build black holes, that change occasionally unchecked too gloomy, glittering or and mirroring busybodies. At least they would not be so surprised, when their building stands in the area afterward exactly with this effect.
Nevertheless, with the glass is a very exciting material available for us. The many different aspects of the production of glass leads also to the several various of use-places. So it maybe the best to sort this variety according to their formation. Because of the reciprocal influences also this logic possesses has its restrictions. To much creative and technical type of the individual specialities have taken place and enrich each others. But this structure helps at earliest to understand the respective meaning of the described aspect for our time.
Jewels and vases
Glass is at very versatile material. It exists in different facets. People could discover glass as a rest-material after volcanic eruptions. Surely they did this in the early beginning as they began to have interest for collecting stones in orders to do jewellery. This glass-stones were called "Obsidian". Later people saw, that they were able to produce the glass themselves. In Old - Egypt about 5500 b.C. they discovered, that glass could fall out by the treatment of iron-ore or when began to burn the clay with the intention to produce pottery. This glass-rests were therefore first processed for jewellery.

The next step was to produce glass in a planed process. About 3000 b.Cs. the Mesopotanieans succeeded in doing it. The people in this area were able to create the first vessels from glass. They produced it, in warming up the glass on 1400 degrees Celsius. It got glutinous like honey. They move the glow material cumbersomely into small forms .

The Egyptians brought the procedure 1500 years later on a higher level. They use at sand-kernel, over which they poured and pulled some liquid and glowing glass. After this work they polished and sharpened it, so that the glass became plainly and transparent .

This ancient technologies in the glass-production exist until today. Especially that just descriptive pour-treatment has achieved an important position in the art-craft and creative disciplines. The industry uses these procedures. They put in poured glass especially for jewellery, cups, bowls, lamps and everything according to this. Therefore poured glass is one of the important materials, with which the artist worked in any art-style until today.

Beside the free ideas of the artists only in glass we have to expect further developments in the combination with other materials. On this occasion, they also will begin to make more experiments with modern products of the chemical industry, that can be comparable transparent. But glass never can become replace completely with substitute-materials. His transparency, connected with the variation and the noble coolness of the material makes it especially unique.

Mouth-blown-glass

The next big invention was also developed in the Mediterranean-area. The Phoenicians processed the centuries fundamentally process of the blowing of glass in Sidon about 50 b.C. After our today's knowledge they used the glass blower-pipe first. With this important step it was possible to have the same temperature during the cooling-process on both sides. Trough this it got clear and transparently.

The roman empire took the technology especially for their vessels. After German tribes conquered the West-roman area a part of the knowledge about glass-treatment was decline. The German tribes had no distinctive sense for this type of the trade. A few decades earlier the academic thought about a total destruction of the technology-knowledge of the Romans. But the new results of the archaeology-research show, that the younger findings from that period have a lot of glass-products, even if it was got on a more inferior level. This could especially be reached by the take-over of the Roman craftsperson's as such.

With the foundation of the German empire stated at new continuous development in the centre of Europe after a lot of chaotically years. The people wished particularly for the Romanic churches materials, that were able to lead much light through the small windows. Necessary this prepared the way to make clear plain glass for windows. At 1000 a.C. they discovered the cylinder-blow-stretch-procedure. On this occasion one bottle was inflated from glass. The glass-makers open the glass-bottle in cutting it. Then they moved the transparent glass into a level.

This glasses had different colours, which had to do with the pollution of the basic-material. First they came surely without any calculation. Then they were interpreted positively and on and on developed. A creative potency lay in the colour. The artists of the Romanic period and especially in the Gothic epoch developed an individual language and discovered their own style. The Gothic cathedrals in North-France and in the west of Germany can be understood in the easiest way with the idea to build a glass-house with the possibilities of the 12th or 13th century. The whole stone-construction was only there to be reduced on the absolutely necessary pieces in order to manage preferably many window-surfaces. Already through this reason-idea, the window-formations of the Gothic received a gigantic meaning. Because of that, this epoch could record accordingly many new developments.

With the moon-glass-procedure came the next innovation in the 12th century from the isle de francs. On this occasion the glowing glass-piston was connected with a second pipe. The glass-maker generated them with circle-rounds slingshot-movements as a revolving disk. Hereby people were able to construct 120 cm transparently slices glass-produces.

The manufacture-process is just as simple, as fascinates. The glass-windows became lifelike drawn on an cartoon after the artistic design. The glass-makers cut out the patterns for the singles-disks from this carton with a duplicate-scissors. The particular scissors cut so much away that enough place remained to insert lead-rods later. However before the glasses were treated in most different manner in order to achieve an optimal effect.

Exactly the Gothic period created with their area-idea and with new technologies a multiplicity for the glass-treatment. Coloured glass something invented in the most different possibilities. The technology of duplication was originated. They put several coloured-glass layers over the first one. That gives different colours. Another technique was, to modify the disk with engrave. It was also possible, to paint something with black-plumb on the surface.

The individual disks became with H - molds lead-rods interconnected. To bring them close together, they were set under great heat in the oven. On this occasion the lead-rods adapted themselves to the glass form conclusively. After that the lead-window was connected with a framework from irons. The glass-makers soldered lead-rods as connection between the rods and the wind-iron. These irons lead the wind-loads with their own weight into the stone-construction of the Gothic traceries.

During the increasing development the technology was taken for more and more secular buildings. The mostly clearer plates were more popular. With them it was possible to capture a lot of light through the few openings in the dark rooms. If the household was sufficiently wealthy, these windows could replace the elder technique. This was made easily by pig bubbles stretched on a wood framework.

Particularly this type of the windows is from great interest until our time in the sacred rooms. Meanwhile the treatments of the plates changed, but the general technique remained untouched. After the colourful Middle Ages windows followed with clear plain moon glass. Baroque architecture preferred partial solutions in which the observer couldn't be aware of the windows at all. The windows produced with transparent moon glass after old technology spend bright, radiant light from hidden angles into the room which was made homely by thinnest, apparent valuable surfaces like in a fairy tale with the possibilities of the imagination.

The techniques of the Roman empire remained unchanged also in this Islamic area. No image representations were allowed to be chosen for religious reasons here. Instead of this the artists use ornaments which partly combined them with sharpened marble disks. Effective windows were designed which have their own strength and dynamics in their geometry and flowery elements.

The coloured glass stood for mysticism in the Middle Ages, magic and for an independent firm art concept. Due to the great projects of the Middle Ages the later time often loses gleam. But the glass got his old high importance again and again in the following art periods, too. The modern time has not forgotten the glass-art. It's magic character is still strong enough for every period. In the beginning of the 20th century was a short booming time for glass-architecture.

The American Louis Comfort Tiffany made glasses like painting. He promotes the technique to deal with the glass-surface. His windows was more artist, than architecture work. The German Dutchmann Thorn Prikker focused himself on abstract and geometric paintings. He found a way to make sharp corners with the lead-line. He promotes the technique specially for profane buildings. The Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh take colourful glass for his projects. The same did Antonio Gaudi in Spain. Also modern artists in France like Matisse, Chagall and Braque loved to work with this wonderful material.

The American Frank Lloyd Wright put especially in his first time coloured glasses with lead-rods in parts of his windows in order to reach more than view with them. The decoration wanted to increase the value of them as eyes of the architecture. They made them to art-object and jewellery for the area simultaneously . With him one of the greatest architects of the last or second to the last century liked to use this merit in its houses.

But also Germany had still a lot of persons, who were interested in the material. We also can see such a design from Bruno Taut. The Bauhaus with Paul Klee and Josef Albers and other architects of the modern stile had a great interest for the material.

After the second World War Germany needed a lot of churches and pubic buildings. The glass art became very important and new ideas were surched. That was a good time for the glass-artists. Georg Meistermann made a lot of interesting glass-windows in a lot of churches and public buildings. He used very colourful glasses with geometrical figures. Wilhelm Buschulte, Johann Poensgen, and Hans Gottfried von Stockhausen were important developers of new artist ideas.

Specially Ludwig Schaffrath escaped from his influence of Meistermann and found a own language. His work get free from rectangle forms and got a own dynamic with moving vivid forms. He did this with a lot of parallel lines and a lot of strange geometric forms. He promotes the glass art to a international high level.

The efforts of Johannes Schreiter to give the topic newly aspects earn to be mention. He has managed to turn the principle of the lead windows. Glass can take over load-bearing function. Therefore can another task causes for the lead. The lead-rod, which is otherwise responsible for the stable connection, become a art object at it. By this distortion opposite to the medieval interpretation he receives astonishingly effects.

The American Robert Sowers did a lot of research work for years 1960-70 and the modern glass-technique and the relationship to the architect. This work was important, because it shows that architects and artist should work together. In several projects for some airports he gave examples, that this co-operation is fruitful. The American Ed Carpenter proofed in his work, that the glass-art can make a building so important, that the visitors will never forget it. James Carpenter made interesting experiments with the material and formed beautiful rooms with special effects of light with his windows.

The painter John Piper and the glass-artist Patrick Reyntiens in England worked together. They infuenced together with Johannes Schreiter the English glass-artist Brain Clarke. He found a way for a good co-operation with architects. His work shows the strength of his communication and knowledge of the technology. His tests refer particularly to use of strong colours. Glasses with different discoloration's become highlights at its works in the fa?ades.

The most famous work-shops for glass art are in Germany. Names like Derix in Taunusstein and Rottweil, the Munich Hofkunstanstalt and Oedmann stand for a high quality. They still prove a lot of new possibilities in glass.The modern glass artist earn a special appreciation. They show that innovations are still possible for an apparently so old and thought-out topic.

Most innovations might nevertheless lie in the change of the outer structure of the glass in the future. The treatment of the external surface of the glass already brought astonishing progress in the Gothic style. These still have to be recorded. Coatings take a considerable room besides the possibilities or change mechanically. Dichroic coating, examples of enamel coatings are use. They change the light waves and can trigger different effects. With the translucent insulation a completely new variant of the intelligent control of energetic aspects was won by the combination of glasses in the addition of small pipes approximately 20 years ago. So that also technical points of view will further be optimised or changed and become besides the aesthetic ones more important in the future.

Pouring technology
The next step occurred in the Mediterranean room in front of a little more than two thousand years. The cultures there developed a method in the last pre-Christian millennium with which the glass remained transparent. It wasn't completely transparent with that yet. But it brightened the rooms provided with that considerably.
At the manufacturing method it was important that the glass as mass cooled down as evenly as possible. The molten glass was heated up until it was thickly flowing like honey. The workers poured this material in wooden forms. The wood was made before wetly. So it isolated the glass and prevented a one-sided fast cooling. The cooling is evenly carried out. This made possible and safeguarded the transparency.

Approximately at the same time as the Phoenicians have invented the glass-bubble with the pipe, the Romans developed a technology, with which the glass was poured into a wet wood-bed. On this occasion, it remained muddy on a side. Nevertheless, they were able to produce glass-disks, that could be put into windows in sizes from 70 cm to 150 cm.

This technique was lost at the end of the roman empire. The French L. N. de Nehou developed a pour-treatment in 1662 a.C., where crystal - or plate-glass could be produced by poured hot glass-material. But they had to be polish in a lengthy process. People could make windows with a size of 200 x 100 cm at that time. Man big mirrors, which had a great importance for the interior design and the room feeling in the epoch of the baroque, could also be produced by this method.

At the beginning of many putative technical developments stands the need to solve a certain problem. By the colonies Great Britain hadn't only reached all ways of raw materials. It had moreover access to the most exotic plants. Of course this irritated, to have these lovely creations of nature of the Empire also at home in cold England. Greenhouses were necessary for it. The qualities of the glass approached this particularly. By the transformation of the sun-ray-light beam in warmth could be caused a micro-climate under glazed bodies.

Little greenhouses of glass plates inserted in wood skeleton style were widespread in prosperous societies already at the end of the 16th century. Since iron constructions are lighter and the house gets more transparent, these could already force the wood style back around the turn of the century. We find early examples e.g. at 1701 for the orangery in Kassel. This are the first constructions made by glass and iron which are considered with the buildings of industrially as a precursor of the modern style with right.

Of course most innovations came from England, the origin country of the industrialist revolution in the 19th century. The inventors weren't architects. The gardener John Claudius Loudon (1783-1843) developed the ridge-and furrow-roof. He bent the individual roof segments in the direction of the roof gradient and got a better radiation angle and greater sun shares for the warming of the plants in his halls. The topic of an especially air-conditioned room could be transferred fast to other building typologies, so on market-, station- or exhibition halls.

The best known building of this group is the crystal palace of Sir Joseph Paxton (1801-1865). He realised the building 1850 on the occasion of a world exhibition in shortest time. It was regarded as a highlight of the industrial skeleton making in his time. Within 6 months a hall of 564/125/20 meters with 83.000 square meters glass arose was planned as parts of manufactured work ridge-and furrow style. Although this building burned down after a reorganisation, later buildings are handed down, for example the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburg from1856-58. They show still today, what for a generous solution was carried out by Joseph Paxton.

But the development didn't stop with that. France was a more and more important competitor in the steel-, glass-, later concrete constructions, in the industrial development particularly on the continent. It has a considerable share for necessary innovations to build modern. Also other countries nevertheless are involved. The Belgian Bicheroux invented a method to pull glass from the stove which led to new lengths and breadth measures.

The development of the 20th century was concentrated on the mechanical pull-treatment and the bends cylinder through the American E. W. Colburn. Now it was trouble-free to generate over projectile-high glass-disks. This procedure made it possible to realise the mankind-dream of a protective, however to get a transparent cover.

But to make concrete projects with this technique, it required the combination of different modern building-materials. Only this managed to make the fa?ade from the construction free. The historical half-timbering style helped to find a solution for this question. Already in the older days half-timbering was used to bear in front a board shuttering plugged or nailed on it. This construction-style already separated between the load-bearing skeleton and the hung fa?ade in front.
On the one hand, there had to be a wing assembly as open as possible and on the other hand clothing material for the open fields. This was then transparently conceivable. The modern age architecture would have been not possible without the materials steel or reinforced concrete in skeleton style consulted for carrying the covers. Otherwise the buildings could not get more and more transparent.

These need could also glass blocks solve relatively fast. We still find skeleton buildings again and again today whose gaps are filled out with glass blocks. The French architect Auguste Perett put the glass block wall in front of the reinforced concrete skeleton like an umbrella for his famous church Notre Dame. This approach was just as brilliant and trend-setting like the reinforced concrete construction of the building.

Bruno Taut used at the work federation exhibition 1914 in Cologne in his pavilion the glass blocks not only in the outer fa?ade. He build also the stairs with it. It could show a completely new unresolved going feeling that found it succession in the many glassy steps till nowadays. Just today, this material is as modern as it was one hundred years ago again. Renzo Pianos department store in Tokyo from the year 2001 can be named as one of many examples.
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The fa?ade as an own element had first to stand free in front of the carrying structure. At this moment the engineer dared to try out new liberties. For the bigger buildings the dream got filled with the glassy outer skin in the combination with other modern materials. The separation of the carrying structure from the fa?ade was made possible with the Curtain-wall. An early example was the department store Tietz in Berlin of the architects Sehring and Lachenmann in 1898.

An engineer from the family Steiff at Gingen at the Brenz tried out completely new liberties. To get as much light as possible into a factory building for the production of the world-famous Steiff teddy-bears he already built 1903-11 a curtain fa?ade with a glassy corner.

This idea was included gratefully in 1911-16 by Walter Gropius and Alfred Meyer, where they build the Fagus factory in Alsfeld near Hildesheim. The topic repeated Gropius for the Bauhaus in Dessau. However, the actually innovative elements of the Bauhaus are on the back. Gropius used the at that time biggest curtain fa?ade with a soft net from load-bearing iron rungs there. He liked to be photographed in the foyer of the building. It was possibly to see the biggest glass plate which was produce at that time and could be transport on the whole length. Through this window everyone was able to look on the curtain construction on the north eastern side of the Bauhaus workshop section.

The topic glass interests specially the third director of the Bauhaus . Nies van der Rohe made the design of a sky-scraper for a competition in Berlin in 1923 with a skeleton from concrete and outside of glass . But the time was not developed enough, to realise such a great idea. As next he showed a unknown transparency with the Franworth House 1946-51 in Plano, Illinois USA. However, this was completely strange for his client. As Lady Farnworth saw the house completed the first time, she turned round immediately. She is never retracted - today it's a museum.

The development of the glass fa?ades didn't come to an end with that. The Italian-American Pietro Belluschi worked on this topic all his live. He had the most famous result with the Equitable Savings and Loan Association Headquarters in Buffalo in 1948. It was the fist smoothly fa?ade and it had a double glass disk for the climate. This example was copied all over the world, but seldom mentioned.

The Lever House from Skimore, Owings and Merill in New York brought the first in front of hung fa?ade in the highest range and technology with blue and green glasses in an steel-frame in 1952. The architects mentioned the sky-scraper of Nies van der Rohe in the competition from 1923. So it is beautiful, that the Segram-Building from Nies, where he showed that he was the master of the detail, stands in the direct neighbourhood to the Lever-House today.

With the development of the float-glass-procedure 1959 through E. Pilkington, was a material generate, which was not only more inexpensively, it also take away the problem of the slide surface of the glass moreover. Hereby glass could be constructed so transparently that the glass-conclusions of buildings give no border to the space outside. As example buildings from a lot of architects of our time can be named. The combination of the glass especially with steel or other metals is still one of the most important constructions.

In the USA planners developed the Structural Glassing in the middle of the seventies. In this technology the glass plates are stuck on to a position bolt system surface. Structural silicon is used. This is world-wide the mostly used method for buildings of this type today. However, in Germany it is allowed only up to a limit of 8 m over the ground. It is feared that structral silicon loses its softeners and gets brittle by the ageing. The glasses then could fall down. For this reason they must in addition be fastened constructively in higher situations.

The development tries to design the carrying construction always for the glasses more transparently. Supports and joist are used of glass for single particularly innovative fa?ades. This rather is spectacular for individual buildings, not for the market usual. But in any case, it is an interesting technical development.

Glass in the construction

Load-bearing glass constructions in connection with steel, wood etc. are confessed by the greenhouses, station and covered markets of the 18. and 19. centuries. You already used glass statically. The interesting, secondary process consists in consulting the glasses still more strongly statically.

An important innovation was that from 1909 from the French E . Benedictus, who patented security-glass-disk moreover. He founded two disks on celluloid. About 1930, Staint-Gobain invented the one-disk-security-glass. These inventions opened a new field for glass. It could be put in not only for the protection without a steel-curtain against crooks henceforth. Now it was also mortgageable to use it more statically. So bearers and supports can be built also from glass today and the dream of a completely transparent building has become reality.

The company Hahn in Frankfurt at the Main realised the first glass-cube with a glass structure from glass plates and with a flat roof carried of glassy I carriers in 1951. 1957 the same company put hanging glass swords in a fa?ade, which completed the dissolving of the wall for the first time.

In the seventies the projects of Norman Forster Associates together with manufacturers brought new developments. The project Willis Faber & Dumas in Ipswich 1975 stands exemplarily for it. The project was developed together with the manufacturer Pilkington. Hanging glass swords against wind burdens connect small-part of hanging glass plates. Straight hanging glass constructions permit most likely to design supports or glass swords more slimly. Norman Forster still chose a one plate glazing in the project in Ipswich. Today, the energetic identification values despite the missing isolating glazing nevertheless are still remarkable. The optimised building form contributes to it.

With the principle of the constructive fastening and making use of the static qualities of the glass far more colleagues did experiments. Rice-Francis Ritchie 1986 managed ones particularly important contribution with a rope-behind-draw wing assembly with supple point stores. He shows a way to bring in the good static qualities of the glass positively for the material optimisation. Pieter Zaanen 1988/89 set up a glassy installation in the historical stock exchange in Amsterdam from Berlage. The cube includes the carrying behavior of the glass in the rope seized-up construction optimally. Because this object is standing in the building, no wind- snow- or similar burdens have to be taken into the account. So Pieter Zaanen could test here more as usual. 1996 the Hamburg architects Gerkan - Marg and partners chose the principle of an outer rope seized-up construction for the glass plates under inclusion of their carrying behavior for the Leipzig exhibition hall. The EU building in Brussels of the architects Murphy and Jahn 1998 also must be regarded as remarkable contributions for the further development of this technology. The rope tension of the glass fa?ade is voted inside and on the outside here.
It has to be observed that the wing assemblies become more and more light. With the help of rope seized-up constructions the glass can more strongly be included in the wing assembly. For this idea, a special attention befits the bars bowls. You avoid mass expensive bend wing assembly by their geometry. Line-strengths can be changed in area wing assembly, what will lead to material savings.
For the further development is one point to solve. The hole in the plates of drilled glass holder are weak. This one can be solved as stuck connection (epoxy resin gluten's, polyurethane gluten). It may be to be developed to expect like in the car industry. There is a constructive solution for a steel glass combine-shoot spare.

In the nineties partly was before-stretched glass developed to increase the remaining stability of the glass after the break. To use it correctly the admittance's are missing in quite a number of areas today, because the building-material is too new. The famous glass-bridge in Rotterdam in the year 1993 from and in the studio of the architects Kraijvanger and Urgis stands as one of the first small examples. Special attention found the roof construction over the workshops in the Louvre of the architects J. Brunet and E. Saunier in the same year. With the entrance for the subway for the station Yurakucho in Tokyo there is a example with to approxiamatily ten meter long collar arm form 1996. The project of Rafael Vinoly together with Dewhurst, Macfarlane and partner shows the roof elements as straps consisting of several elements made of glass.

Isolation-glasses / Double-disks
But to cover a building has also a lot to do with the climate in and outside. In most of the wall-constructions it is the weakest point. Because of that, a lot of thinging in the history of buildings has to do with ideas, how to solve this. It was especially necessary, when societies didn′t have enought material for heating against the cold weather in their area. The Romans already had a solution for the climatic problem. They solved it with box-windows .
Today, these windows are still used with pleasure in the area of the preservation of historical monuments. They have astonishingly good energetic values. But they are impractical. Two wings have to be opened every time. In summer the winter windows must be stored, what needs place. Therefore the isolating glass has gained acceptance.
Isolation-glass, that means two glasses in one frame, was escaped in 1865 by T. D. Stedson. This technology offered a solution, that doesn't use so much space and removes unlucky reflection-effects. In the further development this technology will have a big meaning. The gap of the two disks can be used differently.
Gases can be put between them, that takes influence on temperature, darkening, view-protection and similar things. Through inserted technology, solar-cells can bring an energetic profits.
A glassy combine isn't solved yet between the isolating glass plates and the previous gluten. The black edge still has necessarily to be got around resistance opposite the ultra-violet rays radiation. The chances of the research are not finished here. Many discoveries await their inventor!

Future
The ancient material glass belongs with it's gigantic development-potentials to the most interesting materials of the architecture still today therefore. Also the turned circuit of the acryl or other transparent chemical products won't be able to oust the glass. For example is Polykarbonat makrolon 40% more light, but the problem of the scraping is not solved totally. This is just tried to be changed by the use of nanocomposit as a thin top layer to turn the danger of scrap away.
Rather, further chances will consist in the combination with these procedures with the glass. The design can advance these innovations with new ideas. The technology can and will give answers even more. It is therefore worthwhile to occupy glass with that.

In the outstanding manner, one can show with the example of glass, that a idea of a special space-impression can be contributed. The main - idea and the wish to fulfil this idea in the best way complement a material further. Design and material have entered a meaningful connection again and again. First someone has a need. This task was waiting for a solution. The desire of the designer to answer in a especial way on the need is primarily. It advanced the development. His wish of a certain spatial solution has inspired the engineers to work for these. These ideas are not thought to their end, not aesthetically and not technically. So we still will be allowed to look forward to many new developments at the interesting material glass.