Glass in structures

"The author ... one of the leading figures of the Dutch engineering office ABT, describes with great expertise designs, concepts and realized projects, in which glass elements fulfil crucial architectural tasks. In the advanced architecture of today the use of this transparent material goes well beyond self-supporting functions and comprises structural parts such as columns, walls, floors and roofs. One of the characteristic material properties of glass, to break suddenly and completely under certain conditions, seems only at first glance incompatible with the static responsibilities of structural elements; each of the construction achievements presented demonstrates how the engineer is challenged every time again to refute that assumption. The various creative solutions, arrived at in close cooperation with some of the most interesting architects of the present, are carefully documented by a multitude of construction drawings, sketches and photographs"--Back cover.