Monday, February 04, 2013
Idea just a bit too late
I've always enjoyed finding 'cantilevered' ideas or products. Often an artistic or musical or technical form reaches its pinnacle just after its replacement grows strong. Its best expression goes unused and unappreciated because fashion or economics has moved ahead to newer and stupider things.
Bumped into one while looking for something else this morning. From MIT tech journal in 1901. [Page 64 of the PDF.] The author, Charles Norton, got slightly carried away with his point:
We have so long given to window glass the task of keeping out the wind and rain, while letting the light and warmth of the sky enter, that the intrusting of another task to this universal detail of our structures is a step which interests the whole community. The window is henceforth to be not only an opening [for light], but a medium for sending the light in the direction in which it is most desired. Except where it is necessary to have [a view], conditions of economy will soon forbid the general use of plane glass. The age of plane glass has passed, to be succeeded by an age of scientific diffusion of light.Can't you hear the grand fanfare? Cue the trumpets! The day of dull old flat glass is done! Boredom is shattered! From now on it's wine and roses and diffusing glass!!!! Wave of the future! Scientific! O glorious ripply prismatic morn! Huzzah! Huzzah! Oops. Didn't happen. Norton goes on to detail a series of experiments with various types of ribbed and prismatic glass, demonstrating nicely that diffusing glass gets plenty of light into the whole room, while plane glass lets the sun control the location. Sort of obvious, but the numbers are impressive. What's truly striking is the near absence of any regard for artificial light. Gaslight was universal in 1901 and incandescent was spreading fast. Boston had its first incandescents in 1882. Norton mentions artificial light only once:
I have in mind a mill with two wings of a similar exposure. One is glazed with plane glass, the other with diffusing glasses, and on any cloudy afternoon you may find the plane glass wing all gaslight, while the other is amply lighted with diffused daylight.I wonder if modern builders could pick up Norton's idea in a different part of the spectrum. In a passive solar design, would diffuse glass heat more of the house?
Labels: 20th century Dark Age
¶ 5:07 AM
