The Glass Box

Audio from the National Building Museum

Series: Architecture 101
Presented By: G. Martin Moeller, Jr.
Date Recorded: July 23, 2011
Duration: 01:33:11

Long used pejoratively, the term “glass box” described the cold, abstract, often lifeless curtain-wall structures common in the corporate world of the 1950s and ’60s. Many of these buildings were also environmentally disastrous, requiring vast amounts of energy for heating and cooling. Today, with advances in material technology, glass is often a smart choice from an environmental standpoint and architects are returning to the use of glass curtain walls in imaginative and varied ways. G. Martin Moeller, Jr., National Building Museum senior vice president and curator, looks at the resurgence of this building type and reveals an emerging “cool” factor.

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