Outside the Glass Box

I saw this link (http://www.thestar.com/living/article/280592) on USGNN this week and I was intrigued. The article talks about how construction of condos in Toronto is moving away from window wall and toward curtainwall … “a new industrial style.” Reading that curtainwall was “a new industrial style” made me pause. I know the word “curtainwall” is not usually part of the typical family’s dinnertime conversation … “Honey, did you see that new curtainwall going up downtown?” … but the technology has been around a long, long time.

Before I continue, let me say that I know the article is geared toward a Canadian audience, but still, curtainwall is not a new technology—not even in Canada, and specifically, the Toronto area. Alumicor has been in business there since 1959 and Fulton Windows in Mississauga, now part of Oldcastle Glass, has been in operations since 1977. And sure, I understand that maybe curtainwall is new for the condo market there, but not for high-rise commercial. In fact, the article goes on to talk about how these new condos are being constructed in a way that will resemble other towers in their given areas.

I did a bit of research on the history of curtainwall. I found that the first curtainwall in New York City was the Lever House, constructed in 1951-1952, and designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill. Here’s a Wikipedia link if you’re interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lever_House.

While the “glass box” style may not be as popular today as it was 25 years ago, glass is still a hot design product for architects. Transparency is a buzzword of late, and thanks to so many structural glazing systems and technologies it’s easy for architects to achieve that look.

I know that a lot of what we see here architecturally in the United States originated in Europe. Technologies that may seem old hat there are new and exciting here. If you’ve learned a trend or found inspiration and ideas from something you saw somewhere else, be it Europe, Asia or anywhere else, tell us about it