CITY OF GLASS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 102, 3 May 1938, Page 9

CITY OF GLASS

A VILLA HOME

DISPLAY IN LONDON

WIDE RANGE FOR ARCHITECTS

(From "The Post's" Representative.!

LONDON, April 6.

From the balcony of the house of glass, Mrs. Neville Chamberlain declared open the twenty-second "Daily Mail" Ideal Home Exhibition this week, and to the company of distinguished guests who had assembled to share in the opening ceremony, there was revealed not only a brilliant display of the finely presented exhibits of 500 manufacturers in surroundings planned with attractive originality, but, in the Grand Kail, a spectacle that charmed every visitor with its daring novelty no less than its unusual beauty. By British artists and craftsmen a City of Glass has been created, an animated and cheerful city of hanging gardens, graceful trees, delicate tracery .glowing with hidden light, mirrored pylons, and gleaming glass in a thousand other shapes and hues. High in this city, set in a little garden and shining like a jewel, is the Glass House, with glistening walls of glass bricks, so smart and shining that it looks like some exclusive summer villa on the Riviera. Yet this house is planned and intended as a thoroughly practical family home, in which life would be comfortable, healthy, and beautiful. : Within its light-diffusing. walls, which permit no observation of the interior from outside but include large spaces Of clear glass to permit a clear vista of the outside world, are three bedrooms, a living-room with an open fireplace and dining recess, sun terrace, and all the essential accommodation and equipment, including air-conditioning, built-in vacuumcleaning installation, and even a glass hot water system. The glass utilised is wholly of British manufacture, and is employed effectively to show not only a great variety of material that the industry is now able, with confidence, to place at the disposal of architects and builders, but also that glass, in the hands of artist-craftsmen of imagination can and has achieved a beauty of form that compels attention as a decoration ait once refreshingly effective and serviceable. A WONDER HOXJSE. The house stands in an ornamental garden 30 feet above the floor of the City of Glass. Its top floor is cantilevered to project over the ground floor, making a sheltered recessed entrance tp the front door. .There is ( a flat roof suitable for a garden,-"and, on the first floor, a sun-bathing terrace. The generous windows of clear glass are a striking feature. The light-diffusing outer walls are formed of fluted glass bricks four inches thick and glass tiles. The ingenious fluting permits no /observation of the interior. The brinks have a partial vacuum inside which' renders them highly useful for the insulation of temperature and sound. \ A sense .of spaciousness and light and the Appeal of new arid ; delicate decorative harmonies are immediately apparent in the entrance ifaj v figured glass and steel doorway; its illuminated glass staircase, its ' general air of elegance. The living-room is walled completely with translucent glass, with the south wall built up almost entirely of folding windows. With , its floor of narrow gauge pitch pine, this room is well prepared to withstand $he ; wear and tear of "coinings and goings" in a small house. An unusual and instantly arresting'feature in it is the glass surround ajjove. the fireplace. It is finished in corrugated glass, and displays ; a very beautiful sandblasted and brilliantly cut picture on glass which gives a character to the whole room. An effective glass tiled screen separates the dining recess from the main living-room, from which in turn folding shuttered windows give access to a garden terrace. CLEANING NO TROUBLE; In the decoration of the general living-rooms, in the cloakroom and lavatory on the ground floor, the bathroom and lavatory on the first floor and in-the kitchen, is used an opaque material with a smooth nonabsorbent surface that cannot harbour dust or stain, and can be cleaned merely by wipe-over with , a damp cloth. On walls and ceilings-it is used in large sheets and in a wide variety of colours, many of them of delicate shades; As a flooring, it is used in the form of small tiles. The crystal kitchen has glass .walls on two sides and a long glass window, from ceiling to table-height, all alopg the coolest north wall. Beneath it, at one height, is the range of metal sinks and table tops. The walls of pleasing pearl grey, with shell pink woodwork and silk curtains make an effective -colour scheme. It has a modern gas cooker, refrigerator and a water heater made specially in moulded armour-plate glass and contrived to show in an ingenious way with colours the flow of the water through it. The chief bedroom is constructed as a sound-proof room where one may rest or write or read substantially free from the disturbing noise of the house and of the world outside. Its quietude is achieved by the use of a special quilting 9f glass silk beneath the floor. This bedroom is a light, airy place with wide windows of decorated stained glass silk between sheets of glass which diffuse light and hold back heat. A glass partition door leads to the adjacent sun terrace. Glass silk, a product of novel character, is used in restrained design and colouring for the decoration of the walls and ceiling. The sun terrace, with its glass square mosaic .floor and glass balustrade sheltered by a glass lens and concrete canopy suggests itself as a pleasant retreat for a siesta. The two subsidiary bedrooms are treated in a manner in harmony with the prevailing idea.

Much of the furniture has been specially designed for the house, and is of a modern and practical type which goes well with the familiar cosiness of thick carpets and the contrast of polished flooring in most of the rooms.