Owens Illinois Glass Company

Demand for Glass Brick

Forces Plant Expansion

The prediction that people would be living in glass houses, which less than a year ago was considered a jest, today is a reality, with glass structures being built in every state in the union.

These structures, which embrace virtually every type of building known, are being built of glass blocks - water-clear units of glass that are translucent but not transparent.

Although this new glass masonry was not introduced in its present improved form until early last fall, it has been accorded wide acceptance, even beyond the expectations of its manufacturers, the Owens-Illinois Glass company.

The tremendous appeal of this new material is reflected in the fact that larger manufacturing facilities already are needed to meet demands of builders throughout the nation.

Officials of the Owens-Illinois company announce construction work has started on a new producing unit and a combination utility and warehouse building at its Insulux glass block plant in Muncie, Ind. The new addition to the plant is being constructed of glass blocks, brick and structural steel, with more than 55,000 glass blocks being used. Expansion of the company's manufacturing facilities will result in the addition of several hundred workers.

This new glass material is being used not only for the home, but for large industrial plants as well. Among the outstanding glass block building projects now under way are the new warehouse of the Reynolds Tobacco company at Winston-Salem, N. C.; a grain mill being constructed by the Nebraska Consolidated Mills at Grand Island, Nebr.; a new dairy plant being built by the Pet Dairy Products company at Johnson City, Tenn.; a new bottling plant being constructed by the Coca-Cola company at Muncie, Ind., and the new Ruhl bakery at Harrisburg, Pa.

Glass blocks are also being used for the construction of a new high school building at St. Louis, and are a part of the Coburn Day school at Miami Beach, Fla., completed recently, is partly constructed of glass blocks. Glass blocks were also used extensively in two new apartment houses in Miami Beach - the Forde Ocean Villa and Pinecrest - and a model home, featuring glass block exterior wall, has been completed in that city.

An excellent use of glass block in the home is seen in its application in the new model home just completed by the Woman's Home Companion at Los Angeles, Calif.

Another of the infinite number of uses is demonstrated in the construction of a glass block front for the Jermyn hotel at Scranton, Pa., and a new night club being built at Long Branch, N. J., by S. Michals, which is expected to surpass any on the Atlantic coast for attractiveness and design.

The practicability of glass block will be demonstrated dramatically at the Texas centennial central exposition in Dallas, where several permanent structures are being built with this material.

Its use for exterior walls and panels and interior partitions in homes is meeting with popular acceptance of homeowners in both construction of new dwellings and modernization of old ones, because there is beauty and economy in glass walls. They need no curtaining and they are so ornamental themselves that they need no further decoration. As insulators against heat and cold, these new glass blocks act almost like a temperature regulator.