Preserving Modernism: Post-war Curtain Wall Renewal

Postwar Modernism’s most defining element – the glass and aluminum curtain wall – is also its greatest vulnerability. Designed as thin, industrialized systems, these systems now face failure and potential demolition due to aging materials, poor performance, obsolescence, and rising environmental demands. Preserving them requires balancing building physics, heritage conservation, and real estate pressures. Following a concise history of the modern curtain wall, this publication presents selected case studies – from 100 Park Avenue (Charles Luckman, 1949) and the Pfizer Building (Emery Roth & Sons, 1963) in New York to Great Arthur House in London (Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, 1962) and the Rotterdam Library in the Netherlands (Van den Broek and Bakema, 1983) – and analyzes rehabilitation, overcladding, and replacement as primary intervention strategies for curtain wall renewal. Many detail photographs and drawings prepared specifically for the book Renewal of post-war mid- and high-rises is a global topic Twenty international high-profile examples