Glass

USE OF GLASS IN ARCHITECTURE IN CARACAS
Glass is a hard material used for both artistic and construction purposes. It is usually made of mixtures of sand and silicates, and very often additives are added to the mixture when making glass with shades of colors or various characteristics (such as bullet proof glass, or light emittance).Some of the main properties of glass are that is fragile and easily breakable into sharp pieces, it is transparent to visible light, it is an inert and biologically inactive material; and one of its advantages is that glass is 100% recyclable. Another benefit of this material is that it can embellish an entire facade of a building by covering it with a glass "curtain wall", like for example the building known as Cubo Negro, located in Chuao, in the city of Caracas. This building has been strongly criticized, mainly because the dark crystals that cover it reflect the sunlight and damage the plants in the surroundings. Many architects think that because of this, glass is not the best building material to use in tropical cities like Caracas. Nevertheless, nowadays glass is considered a very modern and attractive material; so in this city you can find a few more buildings made of glass that are recognized as milestones. One of them is Torre Polar, located in downtown Caracas, which was built in 1954 and it came to be known as the most distinguished skyscraper in Latin America. Parque Cristal is also an emblematic building of the city, located in Los Palos Grandes; and of course the famous twin towers of Parque Central, that until 2003 owned the title of the tallest skyscrapers of Latin America, and even though they were built with concrete, they have very attractive windows. In my opinion, glass should not be used as a primary building material here in Venezuela because it is just not adequate for the tropical weather, and it does not resist earthquakes.