The Invention of glazed Curtain Wall in 1903 -The Steiff Toy Factory

A pioneering iron and glass construction has been preserved in form of a multistorey building of the Steiff toy factory in the east Württembergian town of Giengen. Typical of this building is the continuous use of glass as a dominant building material. The construction, as simple as consistent in its type, anticipates attempts of new constructive and formal methods in industrial building, which emerged only in the 1920s in the work of the German architect Walter Gropius. The use of modern curtain walls planned as a double-skinned construction distinguishes the glazed box of the Steiff toy factory. It is the intent of this study to show how construction and innovation goes together not only in functional factors, but although in an appreciation for the aesthetic ideals of engineers and their emphasis on efficiency and processes.