Glass structures, from theory to practice

In the last century and especially aft er the modern m ovement, the architects emphasized more on the 'lightness' and 'transpa rency' of the buildings, pushing towards fully glazed envelopes. Le Corbusier stated t he glass envelope as the ' minimum membrane' between indoors and outdoors. Today, architects are not satisfied by t he natural illum ination and panorama views which is provided by the glass sk ins, but they are looking after something more. They want to creat e the whole building, from the beam s and the colum ns to the ceilings and the roofs from glass. Their desire to use glass as a structural element has pushed the architects and researchers towards conducting practical experiments on the structural capacity of this material. Many all-glass prototypes and structures have been constructed in this regard.