Page 31 - ISES SWC50

1200s AD
• Ancestors of Pueblo people called Anasazi in North America live in south-facing cliff dwellings that capture
the winter sun.

1800s
• John Claudius Loudon was a gardener and botanist in England at the end of the eighteenth and the first
half of the nineteenth century. He advocated the use of glass and iron for greenhouses. This produced
slender structures and admitted more light into the greenhouse. Spans could also be larger than for
wooden structures. Loudon developed theories according to which the angle of the glazed surface should
be perpendicular to the direction of solar radiation, as in this way transmission of solar radiation was
greatest. He did not recommend flat roofs since condensation would in this case drop straight down and
damage the plants. Roofs should instead be angled (as in a pitched roof) so that one side was perpendicular
to the morning sun and the other to the afternoon sun. Condensation could be drained down into the iron
construction which supported the roof. In order to prevent rust, the iron rods could be heated and then covered
with paint, coal tar, lead or a tin alloy. Loudon who died in 1843 had a great influence on the development
of greenhouses. He and many others studied the effect of different technical options, for instance the slope
of the glass, orientation, window opening, solar control and different types of heating systems. He also
had great visions which he set out in his book Encyclopaedia of Gardening 1822 (quoted from Hix, 1974):
“Indeed, there is hardly any limit to the extent to which this sort of light roof might not be carried; several
acres, even a whole country residence where the extent was moderate, might be covered in this way.”
• One of the most prominent engineers in this field of greenhouses in England in the 19 century was
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Richard Turner (Hix, 1974). He designed many glass buildings, but what he became best known for was
the Palm House in Kew Gardens on the outskirts of London. The building was designed in 1844-66 in
collaboration with the architect Decimus Burton and was wholly constructed of glass and iron. The Palm
House is still in existence; it was completely restored in 1984-89.
• The Palm House in Kew Gardens was one of the first glass buildings constructed with tax free glass
in England. The tax on glass which had been levied in England was repealed in 1845 (Cornell, 1952).
Previously it was only wealthy people who could use a lot of glass in their buildings.
• Dr Bernard Christoph Faust writes a book on how to construct houses , villages etc to maximise solar heat
gain in the winter and minimise solar gain in the summer months. Faust had a dream of a solar city (original
drawn in 1807 and planned in 1824) and lived in a house that had been built in 1649 which had a façade
filled with windows all facing south and south -west . Faust later writes a book titled: All Buildings of Men
Should Face towards the Midday Sun
• Faust had communicated his ideas with letters to architect Gustave Vorherr. Vorherr became the royal
Bavarian building officer for the court of Joseph Maximilian, King of Bavaria. Vorherr started the Monthly
Journal for Building and Land Improvement where he promoted solar architecture.
• In the 1830s Frederick William IV emperor of Prussia embraces solar architecture which leads to Charles-
Henri Junod building Faust’s Solar City in a new housing district of La Chaux-de-Fonds in the 1840s.
• In England in the mid 1800s social critic John Ruskin promoted that the working class should have improved
living conditions. Some industrialists developed working class communities which had plenty of sunlight
and greater space.
• Arcades also became popular. An arcade is characterised by a mixture of small shops with different types
of goods (Pevsner, 1976). By making the street accessible only to pedestrians and also covering it over
as protection against rain and snow, a pleasant passage or arcade was created. The possibility of using
glass and iron for roofs was made great use of in the 19 century for arcades. Climatic protection was
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created and at the same time not much light was lost. An important example is GUM in Moscow. This
bazaar consists of 16 blocks with longitudinal streets and three shorter cross streets. It was designed by
Pomeranzev and built in 1888-1893 (Pevsner, 1976).
• In 1893, the Bradbury Building in Los Angeles was constructed by George Wyman. It contained a four-
storey atrium covered with a glass roof (Bednar, 1986). In the atrium there were staircases with access
balconies on all sides, and two open lifts of iron construction. The atrium was decorated with palms, and
the design of the building was based on science fiction speculations on what buildings would look like in
the year 2000.
• In the 1800’s with great advances in iron and glass manufacturing techniques. Courtyards could then have
horizontal glazing overhead, eliminating some of the weather elements from the space and giving birth to
the modern atrium with its interior lighting being provided by daylight.

ISES SWC50 - The Century of Solar-Stories and Visions | 13