Finally and in no chronological order comes the vertical window.
Vertical windows were popular from the fourteenth century, having
perhaps their most glorious period in the eighteenth century, when the
Georgian window with its sophisticated detailing was almost universal.
Tall windows, set apart by masonry at intervals, provided a simple
structural solution and this formed the pattern of development in
residential and other building types for several centuries.
The window can be said to be the most important architectural feature of
a building; this is the first experience that a visitor will have when seeing
the building for the first time, and architects have naturally considered the
form of the window and its relationship to the exterior to be vital.
The illlustrations of these buildings along the Embankment illustrate
three different approaches to fenestration. All buildings are of the
twentieth century. The first, on the left, shows the more traditional
separate windows, whilst that in the middle is an example of the
continuous horizontal window, where the individual floors are expressed
as important horizontal bands. The building on the right is the further
development where the window becomes a subsidiary part of the
external cladding, for a total glass fac ̧ade. The appearance of the buildings
says little about the success of the daylighting, it says more about
architectural fashion.
ROOFLIGHTS
Whilst rooflights could properly have been said to have started with the
central courtyards or atria of the Roman house, these were open to the
sky and rain; and despite providing daylight to the surrounding dwelling
space, would not have modified the exterior climate in the manner of a
roof light.
The rooflight by definition permits daylight to enter from above
through a glazed opening in the roof protecting the interior from wind
22 Daylighting: Natural Light in Architecture
Three buildings on London’s Embankment
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