The history of humankind has always been closely
linked to materials. Since the early evolution of material process
technology, the ages of human history have been intimately connected
with the names of materials. In the envisaged project, we will
investigate the historic and cultural context of one of humankind’s
earliest high performance materials the importance of which has only
grown with time: glass. Since the early developments in glass shaping,
the history of this material has been closely linked to the cultural
context. Interestingly, many of the artefacts of glass that survive from
premodern contexts today still surpass the dominating methods of glass
processing in the 21st century, and many of the effects found in
historic specimens have a surprising actuality.
GlassAge will explore the cultural and historic
context of glass and the breakthrough developments which have, for
various reasons, been largely ignored by modern developments in the
material.
Just as bionics takes nature as a model for material
innovations, our project asks how the know-how of past cultures can
inspire modern material developments. We envision to provide inspiration
for modern material systems which reach beyond the mere technological
assessment, building on the rich history of material and material
processing in its cultural context thus enabling a holistic retro- as
well as a prospective vision for material systems in the 21st century.
