In the late 1880s, Architect/Engineer Gustave Falconnier [1845-1913] of Nyon, Switzerland, invented a novel type of glass building block or “glass brick” (German glasbaustein or glassteine, French brique de verre). Falconnier’s bricks were blown in a mold (BIM) like bottles, but had the original feature of being sealed air-tight with a pastille of molten glass while hot (see right); after cooling, the hot air trapped inside contracts, forming a partial vacuum. Their sides were recessed to take mortar and were laid up like ordinary masonry bricks, with or without embedded metal reinforcing.
Falconnier’s sealed, air-tight design, a prize-winner at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and 1900 Paris Exposition, solved the contamination problem and had other benefits:
- By making such bricks or blocks hollow, especially when they are made air-tight, they possess several advantages over other materials, being cheap, light, durable, and ornamental. Further, by reason of their inclosing and confining air in a state of rest they serve as non-conductors of heat.” —US Patent No. 402,073
Haywards Ltd bought the patent and marketed them in England for vault and window walls.
- Lewis Magnue Melander visited the grounds of the Columbia Exposition shortly after it closed and photographed the emptiness.
