User:Grippopotame/Gustave Falconnier

Gustave Falconnier, (6 July 1845 – 10 April 1913) was a Swiss politician and architect most known for inventing the glass brick which bears his name. He is the father of architect Jean Falconnier (1881-1968), and the grandfather of geologist and civil engineer Alfred Falconnier (1906-1995).

Life
Gustave Falconnier was born in Vulliens, and was educated in Lausanne and Munich before attending l’École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The Franco-Prussian War forced him to return to Vulliens where he opened an architecture office. He sat on the Conseil Communal in 1874 as a member of the radical party and four years later was elected to the municipal council of Nyon. He was temporarily in charge of public works but resigned in 1879 after being appointed prefect of the district de Nyon, a position he'd keep for the next 34 years, ,.

His son Jean Falconnier (1881-1968) was a prolific architect in Nyon filing 200 site surveys between 1906 et 1955 and was awarded such prestigious comissions as the Nyon office for the Société de Banque Suisse in 1919 and the Hosptial of Nyon 1935-1936. Jean Falconnier was especially active in restoring churches and historical landmarks. His son, Alfred Falconnier (1906-1995) would go on to become a geologist, civil engineer and a contributor to a wide range of scientific journals.

While Gustave Falconnier's architectural legacy can be considered modest, he is most well known today for his innovative and successful patents. These include reinforced concrete floors as well as well as the invention of the blown glass brick (Swiss patent 212, 27 December 1888) which is still in use today.

Gustave Falconnier began producing various kinds of glass bricks in the 1880s. These were blown in a mold not unlike glass bottles but had the original feature of being sealed with a glass pastille while hot. Airtight and hollow, the translucent glass brick allows natural light to pass through thus offering great aesthetic potential. As a building material the glass brick is durable and lightweight; its partial vacuum providing some degree of insulation. The versatility of the novel building material was displayed at the only earned it a place at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and l’Exposition universelle de Paris in 1900. it also received acclaim in in french and german publications, and were embraced by such renowned architects as Hector Guimard, Auguste Perret ou Le Corbusier. Notable uses include the ceiling of the the De Algemeene building in Amsterdam by Hendrik Petrus Berlage (1892) and the famed transluscent stairway wall of the house of ’Auguste Perret (25bis, rue Franklin) in Paris (1903).

Glass bricks are widely exported from productions sites in Poland          (Pieńsk formerly Adlerhütte, Penzig) and Austria (Gerresheimer Glashütte & S. Reich & Co Vienna).

In Switzerland, notable uses of glass brick include Falconnier's former residence in Nyon (rue de Rive 24) at the LePhare watchmakers factory in Locle,  1885, at Delémont, in the former Brasserie jurassienne fondée en 1886 (route de Bâle 12) , and Neuchâtel in the cupola of the former Banque cantonale, 1900 (Faubourg de l’Hôpital 20).

In 2018, Nyon hosted an international exhibition and symposium on Gustave Falconnier,.

The famous glass brick is also on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Notable works

 * 1866, 5th place for a proposed theatre in Vevey. Published but never built
 * 1873-1874, schools at Commugny et de Marchissy.
 * 1876, post office in Nyon.
 * 1877, infermery at Rive à Nyon.
 * 1880, gymnasium at the place Perdtemps in Nyon.
 * 1882, restoration of the Nyon temple.
 * 1884, restoration of the façade of château de Coppet.
 * 1890, villa Colgate in Bellevue.
 * 1895, villa Bella Vista in Bellevue, a grandiose villa built for the baronesse d'Outhdoorn and her american husband Eugène Colgate.
 * 1897-1900, villa Worth or villa les Bleuets, Promenthoux, for the parisian couturier Jean-Philippe Worth (in collaboration with the parisian architect Stephen Sauvestre).

Bibliographical and other related publications