Visions of a transparent future

Post war technological advancements in American steel and Glass production, the Chicago Frame, and a desire for efficiency combined with the modernist fascination with glass, inspired engineers, architects and manufacturers to explore and push toward a transparent future, devoid of the existing brick and mortar facades of the urban landscape.

Paul Scheerbart writes in his book Glass Architecture (1914) “The face of the earth would be much altered if brick architecture were outed everywhere by glass architecture. It would be as if the earth was adorned with sparkling jewels and enamels. Such glory is unimaginable... We should then have a paradise on earth, and no need to watch in longing expectation for the paradise in heaven.”1

The efficiency and symbol of innovation found in the curtain wall system embodied the values and ideals theorized by modernist icons such as Bruno Taut, Phillip Johnson and Le Corbusier, because of this it was quickly adopted as a symbol of the post war international style. Sweeping the nations cities, the curtain wall quickly transformed American masonry-lined urban corridors and became synonymous with the Americanization of modern architecture.

Right: Figure 3: Park Avenue, New York City, 1954-57, illustrating the contrast between the traditional historic Park Avenue buildings and the modernist curtain wall tall office buildings of the era.2

1. Paul Scheerbart and Bruno Taut, Glass Architecture and Alpine Architecture. Ed. Dennis Sharp, trans. James Palmes and Shirley Palmer (New York: Praeger, 1972),46. This volume contains English Translations of Scheedbart’s Glasarchitektur (1914) and Taut’s Alpine Architektur (1919). 2.Kahn & Jacobs, 425 Park Avenue, New York City, 1954–57, at left. The Seagram Building (1954–58) is under construction in the distance.

Left: Figure 4: Illustration of the developing New York City by prominent cartoonist for the New Yorker Saul Steinberg.3

1. Rohan, Timothy. 2007. “Challenging The Curtain Wall: Paul Rudolph’s Blue Cross And Blue Shield Building”. Journal Of The Society Of Architectural Historians 66 (1): 84-109. 2. “The Monotonous Curtain Wall,” Architectural Forum 111 (Oct. 1959), 143. 3. Untitled, 1950. Ink and graph paper, 12 x 9 in. Published in Steinberg, The Passport, 1954

By the end of the 1950’s the term “Curtain Wall” has quickly evolved to encapsulate all lightweight independent cladding systems made up of piers, mullions, and spandrels, designed to keep up with the postwar commercial construction boom.1

The widespread success, ahistoric nature, lack of individualism and machine-like repetition that accompanied the curtain wall, the growing archetype became target for criticism and question.

“The standard curtain wall - perhaps America’s single, most important innovation in the past decade or so - is fast becoming, in the hands of less-than sensitive architects and manufacturers, one of the most irritating eyesores on the U.S. scene”.2

The eradication of traditional, historic structures throughout American cities, replaced by modernist glass houses designed without appropriate thought on their affect on the streetscape and individual became akin to graph paper cities, with no appreciation for site or the environment. The Illustration in Figure 4 by New York cartoonist Saul Steinberg highlights this in his 1950 drawing, using a sheet of grid paper to represent the new modernist archetype.

Technological advancements and a drive for efficiency in not only post war construction, but also architectural discourse resulted in a building method which embodied prosperity and the values of the international style, providing developers and manufacturers with a tool to create commercial buildings which can be built efficiently and cheaply separated from history and the environmental context, hiding under the guise of modernism and innovation.