So you’re thinking about adding some stained glass to your property? That’s excellent! Stained glass isn’t just beautiful to look at; it’s also a useful and functional feature. Stained glass controls how much light is let into a room, filtering and softening it as it pours inward. And the textures can provide privacy for occupants.

Stained glass has been around for quite some time, hundreds of years in fact. Which is great because there are a number of different styles you can choose from nowadays. One of our favorite is Dalle Stained Glass. Fort Collins properties can use Dalle de Verre to add color to bland or white walls, and create an interesting-looking focal piece.

In this post, we’ll discuss how Dalle de Verre is made, and what some of our favorite types are.

Read More

If you have seen Dalle stained glass you probably love it!  We certainly do. This bold style of stained glass is actually made with cement or epoxy joints rather than lead caming.  This is why it often sits outside. It is unique in many ways but one really significant thing about Dalle de Verre stained glass is– it was created rather recently. It just goes to show you how timeless stained glass truly is! Since it is a modern form of stained glass art work, its origins and history are pretty well known to us.  As it were, it is pretty interesting to take a look at how this style spread rapidly across the world in only a few decades. 

Where Dalle Stained Glass Was First Made

The very first Dalle faceted windows were made in France right after World War I.  An apparent artist lost to time collaborated with a french glass shop to have thick glass panels made and then surrounded them in cement for his project.  Soon after this type of stained glass was used by French architect Auguste Perret’s. He used it to create faceted glass concrete walls in the Notre-Dame du Raincy–a church in a Paris suburb. After this–many French artists began using faceted glass in their architectural projects. Many of which were churches. 

Jean Gaudin is credited with fully developing the technique. He had large slabs of colored glass, (up to 1.25” thick) poured then shaped by breaking them with a hammer or cutting with them with a saw. The results were edge pieces that were chipped and created a faceted effect. He then laid out the glass pieces into a traditional stained-glass design.  This design was held in a framed bed of sand. The substrate of cement or epoxy resin was then poured between the glass pieces. The result was a thicker, studier glass and frames with enchantingly deeper color effects. But– it wasn’t until the1950s and 1960s that this glass really came into prominence.

Dalle de Verre Stained Glass In the 1950s and 60s

Dalle de Verre spread to the UK first.  It was brought there by a man named Pierre Fourmaintraux. He trained another man named Dom Charles Norris in the technique, who went on to become a master of Dalle de Verre. His work can be seen incorporated into several Catholic churches still to this day. Although some Dalle stained glass is the US was made earlier in the century, Cathedral of St. Joseph where Jean Barillet created 26 windows that were each 67 feet high and 13 1/2 feet wide was when the glass really became popular– around 1959. These windows were what made Dalle de Verre stained glass period in the US begin.

Sadly, this type of stained glass fell out of favor in the 1970s and 80s. In large part because of changing aesthetics but also because the glass was sometimes subject to structural problems. Also, the size, weight and difficult to remove the cement matrix in which the glass sat posed challenges to restoration

Here at Scottish Stained Glass in Houston or any of our nationwide locations we are able to repair and restore your Dalle stained glass to help you preserve a piece of history.  Contact us today for more information.