ERSTER ZWISCHENBERICHT - e-Learning-Portal

Transcript of the film on glass history – part 1:
It’s not difficult to establish the impact of clocks on industrialization. The role of glass is more mysterious.
“Glass has an extraordinary combination of properties. It’s almost completely inert, so you can use it stoked up, it’s
very transparent, if you make it properly, so you can see what you’ve got inside. And it’s malleable, you can turn it
into a very large number of different shapes. And because of its effects on light, you can use it to set light on things,
magnify them, bring them closer or further away, correct optical defects. And it’s impossible to imagine, for example,
modern sciences without glass, without telescopes and microscopes, without thermometers and barometers. It’s
impossible to imagine a huge range of industries, especially chemical technologies without glass. Now, that’s almost
a magical combination of properties. And to think about how the modern world’s produced, and how we get there, I
think it’s very important to look at who was able to make glass and why.”
Glass making was an ancient craft, known to the Phoenicians, Egyptians, and the Romans. By the 15 th century, the
best glassmakers came from Venice. Alan Macfarlane went to the island of Murano, where some of the finest
craftsmen developed their skills.
“The Italians, as we all know, make wonderful wine, and unlike hot drinks, this can be served up in glass. So they
began to realize that if you made this crystalline, clear, reflecting medium you would get the goal of Athens: of
beauty to the eye and beauty to the stomach, and so they began to make more and more beautiful wineglasses. And
of course this affected the technology which got better and better.”
Secrets of their craft became so valuable that they were not allowed to leave the island of Murano for fear of
industrial espionage. Glassmaking became an important medieval industry across Europe. Just as the mechanical
clock revolutionized the perception of time, so the use of glass changed the European understanding of space.
“Most of the glass in the West is used not for vessels most of the time. It’s true, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s true for Southern Europe, which is a warm area, where they drink wine, it’s for vessels.”
”It’s windows in the North.”
“That’s right”
“There it is for beauty, for protection against the weather, for the glorification of god.”
But gradually, as glassmaking techniques improved, the demand for glass increased. The manufacturing of crown
glass for windows became widespread. Tony Cummings, who has been making crown glass for twenty years,
showed Alan Macfarlane the skills involved. The trick is to create a flat sheet from a large sphere of molten glass. As
Tony spins the glass, centrifugal forces flatten the hollow sphere into a disk. Today these are sometimes used in pubs
and tea-shops but originally the centre was thrown away and the glass was cut into window panes.
Monasteries and churches were the among the first medieval institutions to use glass for windows. Soon they began
to be installed in houses, and other buildings too. The increasing use of glass and clocks created a more orderly and
controlled world. It was clearly seen in many homes with their enormous windows. Glass not only let in more light
but made every mote of dust visible. With large windows, there were no dark corners to hide traces of dirt. The
windows created a new hygienic environment, it began with the glass pane itself, the desire to have clean windows.
Eventually, cleaning became an important ritual in everyday life, to be extended to the scar in the floor and polishing
the textiles. So indirectly, glass wiped away disease.
It also obviously extended the working day, the workmen, they could work into the evening with glass windows. So it
alters perception, it alters comfort, it alters working hours, it alters religion, every part of human life. But not in
China, not in Japan, not in India, not in Islam, not in South America, not in Australia, not in South Africa. Just in this
wet, cold, and miserable part of North West Europe the great window revolution occurs.
The West became flooded with glass. And this changed all sorts of things. It changed the idea of space, time and
person, the individual. But there was one change that was particularly important. That was that with glass you can
make scientific instruments, you can draw it out in all sorts of shapes, so that you can make containers, you can
make thermometers, and barometers, and telescopes, and microscopes, and so that made it possible to establish the
fundamental laws of chemistry and physics. And without these laws you could not have had a steam engine.
Seite 130