The theme of the book is the meaning of glass in every imaginable cultural context – in sculpture, glass painting, architecture, literature, music and film. The texts in ’Broken Glass’ are contributed by art and architectural historians, literary scholars and a film musician. However the prologue comes from notes to John Smith’s film ’Slow Glass’, in which a glazier from London reasons about the history and manufacture of glass. He recalls that although glass appears to be solid, it is in fact a liquid – we just don’t live long enough to be able to notice it flowing.
Almost a third of the book is taken up with Wolfgang Becker’s contribution entitled ’Art and Glass’ in which the author introduces us to a world of glass sculptures and glass installations. Becker comments knowledgeably on the works of Marcel Duchamp, Gerhard Richter, Mario Merz, Joseph Beuys and many other modern and contemporary artists and concludes that, ”.. however [it] seems that the work prevails, in which the authors attempt to illustrate the veritable traits, deceptions and illusions associated with glass.”
Iris Nestler concentrates far more on the craft of glass processing in her chapter on glass painting and ’studio glass’, which explores the manufacture of art, small sculptures and vessels from glass. On the other hand, the Aachen-based architectural historian Manfred Speidel reviews some of the milestones which have been designed and constructed in glass architecture: Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace in London, Walter Gropius’ Fagus Factory in Alfeld in Lower Saxony, Mies van der Rohe’s designs for a multi-storey building in Berlin and the fantasies of the ’Glass Chain’ associated with Paul Scheerbart and Bruno Taut.
Although most of the essays only scrape the surface of their subject area, ’Broken Glass’ stands out by virtue of the fact that it contains a wide variety of perspectives. Glass has seldom been portrayed in a book in such a versatile way. However, it also becomes clear in the book that it is rare to find really demonstrative work with glass which spans all disciplines – even when it comes to architecture and visual arts.
Could this be due to the fact that in our culture glass has recently been completely predominated by business and high-tech architecture? ’Broken Glass’ was at least able to provide a rudimentary contribution regarding the rediscovery of the sensuousness of this material.