Glass: from Plate Glass to Fragment

Smooth, compact and transparent, but also modular, fragmented and translucent, and also sharp, broken and colored: what is the true identity of glass? In the early stages of its production on a large scale, it was considered a symbol of the achievements of the industrial revolution, for its ability to express, better than any other material, the triumph of technology, through its transparency, lightness and brilliance. Since then, its nature has constantly changed, adapting to the needs of different times. After its use in flat, transparent elements, people began exploring the opacity of glass cement that permitted light to penetrate in a more diffused manner. The fragility of the material was overcome and its opposite was created, by compressing glass into translucent blocks with the same dimensions and load-bearing capability as bricks. Light could pass through them into rooms, not just through openings of limited size, but covering the extension of entire walls. The latest mutation is that in which, in addition to the integrity of plane geometry and the modularity for standard units, we develop the continuous plasticity of glass fragments from the recycling process where, in its randomness, it expresses an infinity of esthetic possibilities arising from disposal and reuse.