Glass is a paradoxical material and the only one in which metaphysics seeks to prevail over materiality. It is fragile, but the glass facades instill calm: the more there are, the safer the street seems. It is cold, but invariably associated with the living, not with the dead: tombs have no windows, a completely different matter - greenhouses. The paradox of glass is also that it is capable of demonstrating absence.
Glass looks neutral, but at the same time, more than any other material, it is responsible for the ideology in architecture. Here it would be appropriate to recall Le Corbusier and modernism, but it all started much earlier. Approximately when the rationalism of the coming era of Enlightenment rejected the mysticism of colored stained-glass windows - the transparency of glass in human consciousness was always subtly associated with the truth.
Previously enlightened glass, by virtue of coincidence, like the values of the Enlightenment, was imported to Russia from Europe. Now the production technology has been mastered in Russia. Since June 2017, AGC has launched production of the most neutral glass Planibel Crystalvision at the plant in Klin, Moscow Region. As truth does not have halftones, so it completely lacks shades. The new coated glass is absolutely neutral.
Noticeable absence
Planibel Crystalvision has the highest possible CRI: 100%. This means that the human eye is unable to distinguish distortions of objects that are behind the glass.
Toyo Ito used this characteristic in his Chilean project.
White O House, completely dissolving the border between the interior of the villa and its surroundings. This is no longer the era of Mies van de Rohe and not "Fairnsworth House", which manifested itself as a house of glass, that is, with transparent, but still visible walls. Toyo Ito started a complex flip-flop game in which the interior, thanks to the properties of the material, turns into a facade in the frontal plane.
The villa is densely planted along a slope that slopes gently towards the southeast. Its geometry repeats the spiraling movement in the walls of the living room, in the circularity of the courtyard, and in the roof above it, and in the form of a nearby pool.
The idea of the architect was to make the building and the environment look like a single space without end and beginning. This is a kind of subversion of the idea of "fortress house". The path runs through the courtyard and leads up the ramp from the open conservatory and living room to private areas so that it seems as if there is nothing internal, and therefore there can be no external, and the landscape simply changes its character.
Colorlessness as a bright trait
Planibel Crystalvision is completely devoid of any shade: blue, yellow or green. This quality makes Planibel Crystalvision glass a perfectionist's dream in the interior, captivating with its neutrality and accurate color reproduction.
Due to the absence of extraneous shades of Planibel Crystalvision glass, when dyed or printed on it, the most pure colors are obtained.
Glass with a similar characteristic is used on facades
Milanese skyscraper Torre Allianz. Thanks to the anti-reflective glass with a multifunctional coating, the flat tower of Arata Isozaki has become the perfect mirror for the sky, but at the same time it does not allow most of the heat rays to pass through.
Torre Allianz facades consist of three-layer glazing. The building, more than 200 meters high, looks like it is composed of identical blocks with a curved veil of curved glass. From the side view, the arcs of the “sails” grow and decrease in an extremely clear rhythm, and since the upper part of the tower does not differ in shape and size from the lower one, it seems that their movement has not ended, but only stopped.
This image of the Isozaki skyscraper was inspired by the "Endless Column" by Constantin Brancusi in Tirgu Jiu. However, its material, cast iron, is the complete antipode of glass. The story told by Torre Allianz is about transparency. Even the ends of the building, which, at first glance, were destined to remain deaf, are cut as a result of the chutes of the panoramic elevator shafts. The rise in them, thanks to the properties of AGC glass, creates the illusion of floating in the air.
Light without borders
Russian specialists, together with experts from the R&D center AGC Glass Europe (Belgium), conducted a series of tests to develop a special glass recipe. Thanks to the optimal ratio of materials, it was possible to achieve a higher level of light transmission, the value of which reached 91.
Similar glass from AGC has been used in funiculars that take passengers from Courmayeur, Italy to Mont Blanc. In addition to natural light, they have no additional lighting equipment, so it was important for the designers, Studio Progetti Cillara Rossi, to find glass with the maximum level of light transmission.
It was also used for landing pavilions, in which people who want to get to the main peak of Europe usually crowd. The journey begins with his expectation, and the view of Mont Blanc has long ceased to be just a view of the mountain and has become almost legendary, therefore the glass for the facades was selected with great care.
The high level of light transmission makes Planibel Crystalvision a good base for insulating glass units. In addition, glass retains its neutrality when used with multifunctional coatings.
Pure white
Planibel Crystalvision can be machined in almost any way: grind, polish, drill and groove in it. The same “docile nature” is also found in another type of AGC glass, which was used in the construction of the Arena Corinthians stadium in São Paulo. In the building designed by Anibal Countiño for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, glass is used not only for planar facades, but also for balustrades and VIP boxes.
After the Championship, the stadium was to serve as the home arena for the football club Corinthians. The colors of this team are white and black. It was important for architects to find a glass that, after staining, would become snow-white, without admixtures of other shades. This is another reason why the choice was made in favor of AGC products.
As a result, 72,000 m² of glass weighing 1,500 tons were used for the Arena Corinthians.
The production of the new coated glass Planibel Crystalvision in Russia insures the product to a large extent against sharp fluctuations in prices, reducing its dependence on currency fluctuations.
The location of the AGC plant in Klin, on the border of the Moscow and Tver regions, facilitates logistics and reduces the delivery time of Planibel Crystalvision enlightened glass both to Moscow and St. Petersburg, and from them to the regions.
