The Glass Chain
Emerging architecture and research practice Space Popular make their UK debut with a unique installation for the Werkstatt’s gallery space. The Glass Chain explores an alternative future for glass in architecture inspired by the legacy of the infamous Glass Chain Letters (1919-1920)
Sto Werkstatt’s brief for this new commission asks Space Popular to work with StoVentec Glass to redefine the limitations of the material and imagine its bright, colourful, and energising possibilities – encouraging us to imagine a new purpose for glass in building design.
The title The Glass Chain is a reference to the infamous exchange of letters by a group of German architects from 1919-1920 initiated by Bruno Taut, fantasising about the myriad of possibilities of this incredible material: glass. Sadly, the letters explore a vision of glass that was never realised. These early days of modernism took a different turn: glass became a peripheral material of windows and walls with the ability to mediate spatial qualities while remaining invisible; whilst Taut instead believed that all architecture and even furniture could be made of glass and the material itself could have qualities to be mediated.
