Living in glass houses a real possibility; Owens Illinois glass block

LIVING IN GLASS HOUSES MADE REAL POSSIBILITY

BY MARY MARGARET MCBRIDE

NEW YORK, Feb. 14. — The old adage about people who live in glass houses, was one that had to be taken figuratively, because, until lately, who ever heard of anyone really living in a glass house? Now, though, it looks as if pretty soon nobody would live in anything else. Especially since the builders have found a way to combine glass and privacy. For the new glass blocks of which houses may be made, are translucent, yet not transparent.

The blocks are used both inside and out. Inside, shadowed corners are brightened with set-in mirrored background and glass shelving and panels or pillars.

Good Garden Walls.

The place where you can have the most fun with glass indoors, how­ever, is in the bar and recreation room. The front of the bar may be made most inexpensively of a glass block with a wooden counter laid atop, and colered [sic] colored lights behind the glass. Because it deadens sound, glass is especially ideal for recreation rooms where lots of whoopee is being raised.

Among the utilitarian measures for the housekeeper where glass is a help are adaptments that supply lighting through glass blocks for laundries, fournace [sic] furnace rooms and for storage space.

Besides its use in the actual house structure, glass is also very handy outdoors in gardens and the courtyards, used as a splash wall and base for the fountain, as a border for garden paths and as a fence.

Blocks Stand Big Load.

One advantage of a glass fence in the garden would be the fact that while the passerby could not look in, low-growing plants and shrubs could continue to get light.

The new blocks are resistant to fire, and impervious to the attacks of moisture, acids and vermin. The glass docs not absorb odors, either — which may mean that there will be less smell of cabbage in the home when we all live in crystal houses. Glass sounds fragile, but tests made by scientists indicate that the blocks will stand pressure of 72,500 pounds.

Extensive use of glass blocks in place of windows in this Mi­ami Beach, Fla., home, below, demonstrates the possibility of glass houses. Although admit­ting 86 per cent of the light, the blocks do not sacrifice privacy. Note how well lighted the study (above) is, although the blocks used in the window are not transparent. (From Owens-Illinois Glass Co.)