Use of Glass Blocks Grows, Builders Find Many Uses, Muncie plant is now expanded and shipping glass block

New Laboratory Progresses

Construction work on the new laboratory of the Owens-Illinois Glass Company, Industrial Products Division, is progressing rapidly. This reproduction of a photograph shows the steel frame-work completed. Laying of the glass block has started. The building will be windowless and air-conditioned. The Owens-Illinois glass block, produced in the Muncie plant, is being used. Glass wool insulation manufactured in Newark will be used wherever such installation is called for.

Use of Glass Block Grows;

Builders Find Many Uses

Muncie, Ind., Oct. 14. — With completion of facilities for greatly increased production of glass block, necessitated by a nation-wide demand, the Owens-Illinois Glass company plant here is now shipping the translucent masonry to every state in this country.

Use of glass block predominates in commercial buildings, but innumerable projects are under way in many states where homes are being built or modernized to include exterior walls of glass and as interior partitions between rooms and for basements where more light is desirable.

The largest completed project to date is that of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco company warehouse in Winston-Salem, N. C., where more than 100,000 glass block were used. This unusual structure possibly had some influence in the decision to use glass block for the three upper floors of the five-story building to be erected for the Imperial Tobacco company in Montreal.

The Cudahy Packing company, Chicago, has just opened what is described as the world's most modern packing plant at Albant, Ga. Walls and ceilings are entirely of glass masonry to provide more natural light and greater sanitation.

Nearing completion in Columbus, O., is one of the most modern examples of construction for the publishing business, to be occupied by the American Educational Press. Exterior walls and office partitions are of glass block.

Towering panels of glass block are used with rare effectiveness in the new Press-Citizen newspaper plant in Iowa City, Ia. A new public library in Evansville, Ind., will use long panels of glass block in exterior walls, while a number of school building projects are under way in several states with application of glass block in many ways. One of them, a high school in Waukesha, Wis., will use glass masonry for its swimming pool and for stair halls and panels at the end of corridors to provide more natural light.

Dairy companies in many states have under construction buildings with great panels of block for exterior walls and for interior partitions. Sheffield Farms, New York City, has five projects under way. Pevely Dairy, St. Louis is using glass block extensively.

The Hecht company's department store warehouse in Washington. D. C., is an outstanding example of glass block application, while striking architectural effects are being assured for the Wieboldt department store in Oak Park, Ill., where glass panels 150 feet long are being used.

General Dyestuff corporation, New York City; Timken Roller Bearing company, Canton, Ohio; American Gas-and Electric company; Oscar Heineman Silk Mill, Chicago; Standard Register company, Dayton, Ohio, and government building projects in and near Washington. D. C., are representative of different types of organizations which are making use of glass block for buildings representing a wide variety of; industrial activities.

A memorial tower and municipal auditorium in Ft. Worth, Texas, will be constructed largely of glass block, while in Toledo unusually interesting block installations are nearing completion in the construction of an aquarium, a house for rare tropical birds, a passenger traffic tunnel under a railroad and a trout stream of glass block "banks," all in the Zoological park.

In Hibbing, Minn., where the thermometer often touches bottom, there is a schoolhouse with glass block walls, and in Phoenix, Ariz., hottest spot in the Untied States, a new residence has a large exterior wall of glass block.