Elements and Materials

Curtain Wall

Building Component

Citation Formats

General Reference

Architecture and Design Atlas. "Curtain Wall." Accessed August 29, 2026. https://dev-architecture.interactiveatlas.org/elements/curtain-wall.

APA Style

Architecture and Design Atlas. (n.d.). Curtain Wall. Retrieved August 29, 2026, from https://dev-architecture.interactiveatlas.org/elements/curtain-wall

BibTeX

@misc{architectureanddesignatlas-curtain-wall,
  author = {Architecture and Design Atlas},
  title = {Curtain Wall},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-architecture.interactiveatlas.org/elements/curtain-wall},
  note = {Accessed August 29, 2026}
}

An outer wall that carries no building load, hung like a curtain from the structural frame behind it, usually as a grid of metal mullions and glass. It is what the steel skeleton made possible and what the International Style made an aesthetic: the all-glass tower, from early Chicago frames to the Seagram Building and every glass office block since.

Facts

Element Kind

Building component 1

First Used Era

Late nineteenth century framed construction 1

First Used Era

Oriel Chambers in Liverpool (1864, architect Peter Ellis) is recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as the earliest building with a metal-framed glass curtain wall. 2

Cross-Tradition Connections