Steel-framed windows in Czech Functionalist architecture

Abstract

Although Functionalism constituted an international movement, in every country where it successfully established itself one can identify local or even national characteristics. These are most evident in the case of building components, which made it possible to realise the principles of Functionalist architecture and co-determined its characteristic aesthetic. A key construction element of interwar Functionalism was the modern, industrially produced window – more precisely, the steel window – which made it possible to erase the previously unquestioned boundary between exterior and interior and to endow buildings with an entirely new visuality. This study contributes through reference works of Czech Functionalist architecture, to a deeper understanding of these components, without which interwar architecture in the Czech lands would lose not only its formal expression but also an identity shaped in part by an advanced industrial base.