| Posted: Tue Jan 4th, 2011 12:42 am |
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1st Post |
Krueger
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While enjoying the newest AGG e-newsletter, it came to mind the similarity between the Eldridge Street Synagogue window, and the image on the cover of the newest Albinas Elskus book.....the ca early 1970's Sisters Chapel in Wilton, CT when he was at Durhan Studios (according to the index).....from the photos there is no lead used, must have been glued/laminated.....anyone ever seen these windows, especially recently to report on the condition? Thanks.
Barbara in Michigan
Last edited on Tue Jan 4th, 2011 12:47 am by Krueger
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| Posted: Wed Oct 12th, 2011 06:59 pm |
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2nd Post |
gil
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The windows in a convent were laminated using epoxy resin according to Paul Coulaz the owner of Durhan Studios. Paul fabricated the windows, but hasn't seen them recently.
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13th, 2011 04:34 pm |
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3rd Post |
Krueger
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It would be interesting to have someone view these windows, because as time goes on, how is the epoxy holding up........has there been any attempt (or need) to "repair" any epoxy windows, not just these ones, but others......has the epoxy discolored from UV, etc?
Barbara in Michigan
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13th, 2011 08:57 pm |
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4th Post |
Rona
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The failure of epoxy over time when exposed to UV is well documented, yellowing and becoming brittle. Another problem I have encountered is an internal panel which was dropped, causing the base plate to shatter but the epoxy was holding - huge amount of grief getting the epoxy off to remake.
I believe that is why the new generation of silicone- based adhesives have pretty much taken over in applique work.
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| Posted: Fri Oct 14th, 2011 03:58 pm |
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5th Post |
Mary Clerkin Higgins
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So now the question is, how will the silicone hold up against UV and heat, and how will those panels ever be repaired? Best, M
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| Posted: Fri Oct 14th, 2011 04:51 pm |
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6th Post |
gil
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Silicone laminated windows are difficult but not impossible to repair. Fortunately they are difficult to break since they are mostly comprised of a piece of 1/8" glass laminated to a substantial sheet of float, usually 1/4" or thicker, and almost always tempered or safety laminated. The current lamination technique has been around for at least 20 years. It was supposedly developed by Karl Heinz Traut of Derix Studios in Germany in the late 1980s. Most of the large projects made by Derix and Mayer use Wacker SILGEL or in some cases Wacker Elastosil which is what I used for the Eldridge Street East Rose Window. I understand that both these products were developed as encapsulants for solar cells and have been in use for around 30 years. They are used in satellite solar panels and remain flexible across a very large temperature range from well below zero to well above 200 degrees Celsius, far beyond the range that glazing would be subject to. It is made of silica and is basically inert and resistant to UV light. It does not yellow.
Another plus is that the substance is not toxic and can and should be used with bare hands. I would not advise drinking it.
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| Posted: Fri Oct 14th, 2011 05:28 pm |
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7th Post |
Mary Clerkin Higgins
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Have advanced aging tests been done? For an object intended to last 20-30 years - and here you could include windows for train stations or airports, or the electronics, solar panels, etc. this silicone has been used for - 20 years may be a useful time frame, but for an object whose life span should be in the hundreds of years what data is there that is will survive well?
The Gerhard Richter window, sitting side by side with windows centuries old at Cologne Cathedral, may not look so interesting in one hundred years.
Best, Mary
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| Posted: Fri Oct 14th, 2011 05:53 pm |
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8th Post |
gil
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I'm sure that Wacker, and Dow Corning, which makes similar products, have done very extensive testing. But if, as you say, the current installations are only meant to last 20 to 30 years, there's really no point in discussing the the longevity of the process.
Gerhard Richter's window doesn't look very interesting right now, nor would it look any better if it had been done in lead. It's banality certainly has nothing to do with the process.
Tom
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| Posted: Fri Oct 14th, 2011 06:13 pm |
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9th Post |
Mary Clerkin Higgins
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OK, I agree, though very expensive, it's not very interesting. Not what one would expect from a great figural painter, like Richter. It's not surprising there has been a lot of disappointment in the window. To my mind, what they got out of it was publicity.
Best, Mary
Last edited on Sat Dec 3rd, 2011 04:34 pm by Mary Clerkin Higgins
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Mary Clerkin Higgins
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I have to take back my earlier comment on the Richter window at Cologne Cathedral. I saw it in person about a week ago and liked it. Three things had made me prepared not to like it, the report that the color was "random", the pixilation imagery, and the technique used.
However, the color is not actually "random", there is a purpose to it, or so I think. The pixilation could be seen as adopting a modern visual language that we are all versed in today and that separates us from previous eras. Though brightly colored, it is similar to a grisaille window in that there is no imagery, but it can be used as a focal point for meditation. I saw it on a grey day and the colors really warmed up the cathedral. I've heard that on bright, sunny days it's too light, and that would be an issue.
I still have concerns with the technique used - a silicone bed holding the colored glass onto tempered glass. How many decades or centuries this will survive unscathed is a serious question that we need to look at. I just gave a paper on that in Belgium and there was a lot of discussion following it. I will be giving a version of the paper in Pittsburgh in July.
So bottom line, I liked the imagery and think it works - at least on a grey day. Richter has said he doesn't intend to do any more windows, but I think that's a pity.
I know others have seen it (including my traveling companion, Linda Cannon) what do you all think?
Best, Mary
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Rona
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I saw the sample panel first - they put it up to see how it would look - and I thought it was like wallpaper - inoffensive and bland. Reminded me of the Piper/Reyntiens windows in St Margaret's Westminster.
I have been back to see the whole window since - as chance would have it, yes, it was a sunny summer day - and my thought was what a shame. It did nothing for me, nothing for the space. One of the skills of the very greatest stained glass designers is to design a window that is fabulous year round.
There is a popularity for getting non-stained glass artists to design stained glass - St Mary's Cathedral Edinburgh and St Martin's in the Field London spring to mind - because it gives them some sort of cachet a mere stained glass designer doesn't get! I think it's sad.
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Mary Clerkin Higgins
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Artists with no experience in stained glass are often stunned by how powerful the light can be and how different the glass looks when it's surrounded by an opaque wall versus in the middle of the studio - also what a difference the viewers' distance from the installed window makes in the success of the final result. Some think they're just putting an image in a light box, not working with an architectural medium. So we see pretty pictures in magazines, but in place the windows just don't work. It's complicated, as we know. M
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Rona
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Absolutely agree - my teacher took us to loads of places to discuss glass in situ and how it works (or not), so I did that with my students too. And it's why I am so keen to visit Pittsburgh windows during the conference, not as an add-on!
Have you been to Canterbury? The Bossanyi windows there, seen in books, look so interesting but when you see them they are so inappropriate to space. Conversely, the Wilson window, which everyone overlooks, is, I think perfectly designed for the chapel - I cannot imagine a better solution.
The other thing about seeing them in books is often you see a snippet which works perfectly - I'm thinking the Harrington Mann Angel gathering tulips specifically, if you know it? - then you see the whole thing and it's so unsatisfactory.
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Rona
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Mentioned the Richter window to Fizz who popped in to see it again a couple of months ago - his comment was that, it is so far away and the design is just quarries, you wouldn't have been able to tell from the ground if it was leaded. Some windows - e.g. John Clark's recent windows in the Oran Mor in Glasgow with intricate cuts and at eye level - HAVE to be laminated, they wouldn't work in lead. This could have, so I wonder why they went for laminated?
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gil
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I saw the window in person in July 2008 and was not impressed by the design. Actually, the 72 colors were randomly selected by computer for 3 lancets and flipped for the other 3. Also, I believe that the substrate is laminated glass, but I could be wrong. As far as the expense is concerned, the window is around 1,100 square feet and cost approximately $500,000, or around $460 per square foot. I think that's quite reasonable for that type of project. Richter did not take a fee for his work.
Judging from my experience fabricating the Kiki Smith/Deborah Gans window at Eldrige Street and several other smaller projects as well as the research I did into the silicone lamination process, it is my opinion that in one hundred years the Richter window will look exactly the way in does today, tightly laminated and optically clear. If any of the substrate glass runs, it will remain in place and not be visible from the interior and will certainly not leak or buckle.
By the way, although the sidebar says I am not an AGG member, I actually have been for 6 months or so and having had actual hands on experience with the silicone process, I would love to discuss it with other members.
Tom Garcia
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Mary Clerkin Higgins
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I don't think we know what the material will look like in 100 years or more. While silicones are more stable now than they used to be, no one testing them or manufacturing them will guarantee them such long periods of time. They're perfect for embedding electronics, etc., but when they fail those electronics will be discarded. 20 years is an eternity for electronics, but nothing for art glass. If something is being made for a train station or airport where the expected life is maybe 30 years - no problem, go for it - but if the expected time frame is longer - as it is for religious buildings - then I think this technique is a potential problem.
The Richter window has black silicone between the pieces of glass (as well as having clear silicone behind the colored glass) so it would have been a perfect candidate for traditional and known long-term materials. The process is being promoted as "cutting-edge", just as many long-failed processes have been promoted in the past. To restore anything made with the silicone should it be damaged or the material fail will be very difficult and expensive. Minor works will just be discarded if the owners don't have the money to repair them.
If artists want their work to survive, they need to think seriously about what they are using. Colored glass enamels are another material with problems - though tested and made by professionals they have failed, turned different colors, etc. Adhesives have a problematic history and I don't think we've turned the corner on perfecting them, so, as an artist, I wouldn't trust them to hold up, but I'd like my work to.
Best, Mary
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gil
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Imagine if that person making the first leaded glass window a thousand or so years ago had said "I'm just not sure how this lead and glass thing will hold up so I'm staying away from it. Cave paintings have proved to be quite durable.........."
Fortunately we have a fairly extensive body of work in silicone that we can watch.
By the way, the train station that I use Borough Hall on the 4 & 5 line) is over a hundred years old.
T
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Mary Clerkin Higgins
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I'll bet the artists using epoxy lamination about 30 years ago wish they hadn't and the owners of buildings with now leaky dalle-de-verre are regretting it a little. I'm not psychic, but I've learned not to trust adhesives too, too much because right now we don't know how they'll age. I have pictures of yellowed silicone inaccessible between the layers of plate glass in a very expensive work by an important artist that was relegated to the storeroom because other conservators did not want to touch it because they were afraid of breaking it. Airport terminals don't have a long-term life expectancy and decorative arts in outdoor train stations don't necessarily either.
Artists want to be of their time, but they also want their work to last. Their artistic vision is what's important, which is what I like about the Richter window. But I really wonder how long the window will last. This push and pull has to be sorted through by each generation, especially with all the new materials we are presented with today. M
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Rona
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While the cave painting analogy doesn't hold up for many reasons - not least that cave paintings, hidden for millennia, exposed to the air become very unstable very quickly - the general point about not adhering to "shouldn't use unless tried and tested" is a good one. But we know that leaded glass windows were around many centuries before the great period of the cathedrals so the equivalent for Richter's Koln window would be that it wasn't put in for another couple of hundred years. In the meantime smaller, less prestigious jobs would be doing the testing and be lost. I would be concerned that the Koln window is checked regularly - we all know the horror stories of bits of glass dropping off high-up windows when the epoxy failed.
However, I have to say that I don't believe that all art should be meant to last for centuries. Fashions change (a marvellous coloured window installed in Edinburgh in 1823 was pulled out and discarded in 1857 because it was dull and boring), materials fail, some things are intended only for a specific time and we can't just gradually turn the world in to a museum. Some of my students made pieces that they knew would last a very short time and were deliberately ephemeral. (That nobody would want them to last was another thing!)
I have nothing against laminated windows per se - in fact I love the freedom and possibilities of the medium, which were not exploited in the Koln window.
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20th, 2012 11:49 am |
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20th Post |
mislik
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I don't want to interrupt your little discussion too much and I'm not going to comment on the durability of two-part-silicone. I'm not qualified to do that.
But what I do want to comment on is that you can bet that nobody at the cologne cathedral committee took the business light-headed. So the durability of the whole construction was indeed tested by an independent laboratory for materials testing. After that there seem to not have been any further objections.
Regards
Manfred
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