Whether, with his last words, Goethe was crying out in a psychological or a physical need, we don’t know. Or perhaps he meant the words to carry both meanings, as Ibsen meant Dr. Rank’s “ Thanks for the light ” to. In such a double sense they are a perfect expression of the best aims of to-day : and they are words which may be materially symbolised by glass. Although this issue is largely devoted to glass, we have not included its greatest use—in windows— because this was dealt with in our March issue. Yet it is in this use of glass that its symbolism is best seen.
The Gothic builders loved glass and they developed their technique to extraordinary lengths to get large areas of it but they used it for decoration rather than for light. A dim and glowing obscurity was the only result of so much elaborate engineering. We turn the simpler engineering which steel and concrete have made possible to the purpose of getting more and more light. But even had the Gothic builders aimed at the maximum of light they would still have been forced to occupy a large proportion of their window space with the leading which was necessary for the small panes of glass then available. It was just because their aim was decoration rather than light that no attempt was made in houses to have large windows. From the Renaissance onward, however, the desire for light began to influence architecture directly. First of all came large areas partly obscured by the still necessary mullions and leading ; then gradually, as glass-making technique advanced, larger and larger areas of clear glass. By the Victorian epoch windows had reached a reasonable size, but then they were so heavily curtained that their purpose was almost defeated. A faded carpet was feared more than a faded body. Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice launches, as one of the most scathing criticisms of the Bennets’ house, the terrible remark : “ This must be a most inconvenient sitting-room for the evening in summer : the windows are full west.” To which, as the objection seemed unanswerable, Mrs. Bennet could only assure her ladyship that they never sat there after dinner.
Not only could light have poured through these large windows if it had been allowed to : so could air ; but this was feared almost superstitiously. Remember their nights. The windows closed, the curtains drawn and the fire alight, they retired behind the further curtains of their warmed beds in night-caps and flannel—a most revolting performance. Spiritually as well as physically muffled up, they denied nature her rights. But still, they had large windows, large glass-houses and they built the Crystal Palace. It is therefore all the more amazing that the ye olde cult was allowed to reduce windows again and even further to handicap them with leaded panes.
There is no aspect of the new architecture which is more striking than its wholesome refusal to allow this nonsense to go on. Windows are large again; indeed, they are larger than they have ever been. Often the whole wall of a room is glass and, as if this did not already link the indoors with the outdoors closely enough, it frequently descends into the ground by pulleys or electricity, so that the room becomes a loggia for the time being.
An architect was recently asked why he had applied strips of lead to the window-panes of his own house, turning them into bogus lattice-panes and cutting the pleasant view into irritating sections. His reply was, not that he sought the ye olde effect, which he disliked, but that he wished to emphasise the distinction between indoors and outdoors, he wished the barrier to be not merely the invisible glass, but something unmistakeable, unavoidable. This is the attitude of mind which must be broken down, the survival of the Victorian passion for retiring into its shell and asserting the entity of the room. We feel, rather, that rooms and houses are necessities resulting from conditions of life and climate which we cannot avoid. We belong to the outdoors : the indoors must intrude no more than is absolutely necessary. The need, surely, is to obtain the necessary warmth and shelter with the minimum offence to nature. Paradoxically, it is modern technical developments which enable us to do this. The owner of a Corbusier home can live much closer to nature than the stuffy cave man.
In the past, when most men’s work lay out of doors, this need of ours was not felt ; a stuffy night was compensated by all the daylight in the fields. But when you have been for the best hours of daylight in an office, then the need for the maximum contact with outdoors in the evening and at night becomes urgent.
There are people who object that this sort of thing is all right in sunny climates, but quite impractical in England. In other words, because we do not have much sun, let us enjoy as little as we can of what there is. Surely the exact opposite is true. In the hot climate, the too persistent sun must be shut out : in England every precious minute must be welcomed in. Let us have glass walls wherever possible, to our houses, our offices, our workshops, our factories, above all, our schools. The greyer the skies, the darker the pall of smoke, the gloomier the streets, the greater the need to capture whatever light there is. The cry from grey England is Goethe’s cry of “light, more light.”
