Building for the firm "Cristalería Española"

Abstract

In the course of a series of lectures on the subject of curtain walls, held at the Higher Technical College of Architecture, in Madrid, the author described his own experience whilst constructing a building (designed by him and by Mr. Manuel Barbero) for the firm Cristalería Española, at San Andrés del Palomar, Barcelona. Mr. De la Joya summarised the advantages that foreign experts attribute to curtain walls. These advantages are: less weight of the materials of the enclosing walls; maximum use of the available building surface; cheaper foundations; better building time control; superior quality and accuracy; and greater maintenance facility. The lecturer then explained why, and in what aspects, he was in disagreement with the above supposed advantages. He dealt with these as follows: 1. In terms of present day construction, with concrete blocks and lightweight flooring structures, it is not easy to save much weight, owing to the number of special fittings that are necessary to support and keep the curtain wall in place.—2. Although in theory a. curtain wall may be only 4 or 5 cm thick, the truth is that unless heating or air conditioning is provided on a much larger scale, a special internal protection layer is necessary.—3. It is difficult to reduce the cost of the foundations by fitting curtain walls, and any calculated saving in cost in this aspect is more theoretical than real.—4. Building time estimates usually fail to work out in practice, and in addition to this, workmanship quality is not yet very satisfactory.—5. Curtain walls require periodic overhauls, so that they do not age too rapidly, and in this sense they are no better than traditional walls. The lecturer also made a number of additional points, one of them being that he did not advise the use of curtain walls in Spain (because of the cheapness of brickwalls, the climate, the high cost of air conditioning, etc. He also emphasized how important it is to make a very full and careful study of cost when preparing a project involving curtain walls, in order to evaluate correctly their advantages.