The origin and development of glass curtain wall

I believe everyone is familiar with glass curtain walls. You can see many office buildings, commercial buildings, and landmark buildings on the street with glass curtain walls. Now many stores, villas and hotel rooms also choose to use glass curtain walls for the decoration. In fact, even the sun room we most often contact is also a kind of glass curtain wall. In modern urban buildings, glass curtain walls are gradually becoming the mainstream of aesthetics.

The origin of glass curtain wall is the development

The continuous progress of glass manufacturing technology has promoted the application and development of glass in the construction industry. The development path and trajectory of glass curtain walls can be roughly divided into the following stages: the windows of the early houses of human activities, the Gothic church building period and its development. Subsequent periods, plant garden greenhouses and commercial corridors, enlightenment applications of industrial buildings, and the popularization of large-scale office and office buildings.

The internationally recognized building with the earliest application of glass curtain wall is the Harid Building in San Francisco, USA, designed by Willis Jefferson Polk and completed in 1918. It has all the characteristics of modern building curtain walls: it has a glass panel and a structural system supporting the glass panel, has a certain deformation ability relative to the main structure, and does not bear the role of the main structure.

After the reform and opening up, with the increasing frequency of exchanges with foreign countries, some advanced building technologies and technologies from foreign countries have been gradually introduced into China, and building curtain wall technology has developed by leaps and bounds in my country. In 1981, the first glass curtain wall project in China appeared on the front façade of the Canton Fair. It has the characteristics of modern glass curtain walls and can be used as the beginning of the era of glass curtain walls in my country.