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Glass has long transformed the architectural landscape. From the Crystal Palace through to the towering glass spires of today's cities, few architectural materials have held such immense symbolic resonance in the modern era.

The Age of Glass explores the cultural and technological ascension of glass in modern and contemporary architecture. Showing how the use of glass is driven as much by changing cultural concerns as it is by developments in technology and style, it traces the richly interwoven material, symbolic, and ideological histories of glass to show how it has produced and dispersed meaning in architecture over the past two centuries.

The book's chapters focus on key moments within the modern history of architecture, moments when glass came to the forefront of architectural thought, and which illustrate how glass has been used at different times to project different cultural ideas. A wide range of topics are explored - from the tension between expressionism and functionalism, to the persistent theme of glass and social class, to how glass has reflected political ideas from Nazism through to today's global consumer capitalism. The book also grapples with current arguments about sustainability, while, taking into account the advent of digital LED screens and 'smart glass', offering new cultural perspectives on the future and asking what glass architecture will signify in the digital age. Combining close readings of buildings with insights drawn from research, plus good storytelling and strong contemporary relevance, The Age of Glass offers a fascinating new perspective on modern architecture and culture.

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CHOICE Review

The Age of Glass offers a refreshing perspective on the history of architecture. It is not foremost a study of technological developments, although key advances in the manufacture of glass are covered in a straightforward, easily comprehensible way. Instead, Eskilson (Eastern Illinois Univ.) examines the pivotal role glass of various kinds has played in architectural thought and expression within the realm of high-style building design since the mid-19th century. Only occasionally does the author delve into broader applications, such as the emergence of the windowless department store (about which a good deal more has been written than suggested here). Thus, for example, major works such as Lever House and the Seagram Building in New York are favored over the widespread diffusion of "glass box" commercial buildings and the cultural implications (at home and abroad) of that popularization during the post-WW II years. But within its chosen sphere the book affords a succinct and informative presentation that provides a new, insightful approach to the exploration of modern architecture. Historians of the built environment, architects, and their students will find this a valuable addition to the literature. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty, professionals. --Richard Longstreth, George Washington University

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Stephen Eskilson is Professor of Art History at Eastern Illinois University. He is coauthor of Frames of Reference: Art History and the World (2003) and author of Graphic Design a New History (2007 & 2012).