Glass is one of the matters that has intervened in the construction of what Heidegger (talking about architecture), called ‘boundaries’. It has done it in an ambiguous, complex and elusive way, mediating between the light and the gaze. The optical properties of this material trigger a series of perceptive, emotional and semiological aspects that overpass their study from a purely scientific point of view. The text reflects on twenty-two words, accompanied by a series of images, which refer to these aspects, and which help us to understand how architecture makes use of some of this paradoxical material’s most intangible qualities; properties that are sometimes used in a premeditated way, and that, other times, are activated unexpectedly, adding masks, layers of mystery, to matter.
The book may be acquired at the publisher’s website.