Boundary and skin
Curtain wall
office hospital retail public building
A lightweight facade, almost always of glass and aluminum, hung from the structure, that carries nothing but its own weight.
Solves
What it solves
It allows facades open to light and views in multi-story buildings. In the tropics it requires a lot of shade because glass lets heat in.
Today
If you use it in the tropics, cover it with sunshades, eaves or a second skin and use solar control glass. Require thermally broken frames and a maintenance plan for the seals.
Common mistake
Installing an unshaded curtain wall facing west, which forces the building to be cooled with a lot of air conditioning.
Tomorrow
The future of the curtain wall lies in modules that can be dismantled and reused in another building. In the tropics it is better to give it exterior shade than to add more glass.
Where it comes from
- 1Victorian industrial architecture Liverpool, England, 1864
The courtyard of an office building has one of the world’s first metal-framed glass curtain walls. - 2Department stores Berlin, Germany, 1901
A department store had one of the first steel curtain walls, since demolished. - 3Modern Movement New York, United States, 1952
The United Nations headquarters and an office tower in the city became references for the curtain wall.
Masters
- Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Seagram Building, New York, United States, 1958
He clads the tower in a glass curtain wall with vertical bronze mullions. It is the classic example of a lightweight, non-bearing facade hung from the structure.
See also
Also in Boundary and skin
Diagrams and texts by LDB Arquitectura. They are shared under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows them to be used and adapted with credit to the source.