Curtain Walls: Recent Developments

Michael J. Crosbie

Birkhäuser Basel | English | 2005-10-14 | ISBN: 3764370831 | 184 pages | PDF | 32,5 MB

The curtain wall—a non-bearing wall attached to a building's structural frame like a curtain made of metal or, more likely glass—is an omnipresent feature of contemporary architecture. Variations of pattern and color, transparency and opacity offer the architect almost limitless design possibilities, a tremendous palette for "skinning" the structural frame of buildings from museums to skyscrapers.There are few practitioners of curtain wall design as accomplished as Cesar Pelli & Associates, and this book presents twenty of their most exemplary projects. Arranged by material—glass, metal, stone—the conception and development of each individual facade is revealed and construction details comprehensively documented through numerous drawings. Any practicing architect interested in state-of-the-art curtain wall design will need to own this indispensable and inspiring book.

Table of Contents
The art and craft of Cesar Pelli's curtain walls18
Glass28
Torre BankBoston, Buenos Aires30
Cheung Kong Center, Hong Kong36
1500 Louisiana, Houston42
International Finance Centre, Hong Kong48
Overture Center, Madison56
National Museum of Art, Osaka64
Schuster Performing Arts Center, Dayton72
Cira Centre, Philadelphia78
Central Library, Minneapolis84
Torre de Cristal, Madrid90
Citigroup Tower, London94
Metal100
One Canada Square Tower, London102
JP Morgan Chase, San Francisco108
731 Lexington Avenue, New York114
Edificio Republica, Buenos Aires122
Mori Office Tower, Tokyo128
NTT Headquarters, Tokyo134
Plaza Tower, Costa Mesa140
Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur146
Stone152
Forest Residential Tower, Tokyo154
1900 K Street, Washington160
40 Bank Street, London166
Nakanoshima Mitsui Building, Osaka172