Who was the first chap to say “it's a little chilly… lets put some glass in this here hole in the wall!”
in other words, who invented the glass window, and when? thank you in advance for your splendid answers, as I’m sure they will be splendid indeed.
CookieMonster
on February 8th, 2012
The earliest windows used thin parchment or hide to keep out the elements while letting some light in. They were not supposed to allow you to look out.
The first glass windows followed this concept. When first discovered, glass was far from transparent – glass beads, usually colored with pigments, were used as ornaments.
To get transparent glass, one needed pure (or purified) sand and soda, and ovens that could melt the material without staining it. Transparent glass bricks too irregular to allow to look through may have been the start of glass windows, presumably somewhere in Asia Minor or Europe.
Flat window glass required glass-blowing technology, i.e. bronze or iron implements. An elongated bottle would be blown, the top and bottom cut off (using diamond or similar cutting tools), the bottle cut in halves, and the halves heated so they could be flattened.
As far as I know the Romans knew flat glass window panes (e.g. in England), so the answer will be some unnamed ancient.
LighteningBolt
on February 8th, 2012
The Romans developed clear glass technologies during the 1st century A.D. Around 100 A.D., they began to incorporate it into their architecture in the form of windows.