Editing Window (section)

== History ==
[[File:MorellaSantaMariaWindow.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Alabaster]] "mullion"-divided decorative windows in Santa Maria La Major church ([[Morella, Castellón|Morella]], Spain)]]
[[File:ValenciaCathedral2.JPG|thumb|upright|Alabaster window in the [[Valencia Cathedral]]. Note the asymmetrical, slanted left side of the wall-frame, which lets sun rays reach the chancel.]]The Romans were the first known to use [[glass]] for windows, a technology likely first produced in [[Egypt (Roman province)|Roman Egypt]], in [[Alexandria]] {{circa|100}} AD{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}. Presentations of windows can be seen in ancient Egyptian wall art and sculptures from Assyria. Paper windows were economical and widely used in ancient China, Korea, and Japan. In England, [[glass]] became common in the windows of ordinary homes only in the early 17th century whereas windows made up of panes of flattened [[animal horn]] were used as early as the 14th century. In the 19th century American west, [[greased paper window]]s came to be used by pioneering settlers. Modern-style floor-to-ceiling windows became possible only after the industrial [[plate glass|plate]] [[Glass production|glass making]] processes were fully perfected.

=== Technologies ===
In the 13th century BC, the earliest windows were unglazed openings in a roof to admit light during the day.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}} Later,{{when|date=October 2016}} windows were covered with animal hide, cloth, or wood. [[Window shutter|Shutters]] that could be opened and closed came next.{{when|date=October 2016}} Over time, windows were built that both protected the inhabitants from the elements and transmitted light, using multiple small pieces of translucent material, such as flattened pieces of translucent animal horn, paper sheets, thin slices of [[marble]] (such as [[fengite]]), or pieces of glass, set in frameworks of wood, iron or lead. In the Far East, paper was used to fill windows.<ref name="britannica.com">{{cite encyclopedia| url= http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/645175/window |title=Window
|encyclopedia= Britannica|access-date=May 19, 2012}}</ref>
The Romans were the first known users of glass for windows, exploiting a technology likely first developed in [[Roman Egypt]]. Specifically, in [[Alexandria]] {{circa}} 100 CE, [[Glass casting|cast-glass]] windows, albeit with poor optical properties, began to appear, but these were small thick productions, little more than [[glass blowing|blown-glass]] jars (cylindrical shapes) flattened out into sheets with circular striation patterns throughout. (Compare traditional [[church window]]s made of [[stained glass]].) It would be over a millennium before window glass became transparent enough to see through clearly, as we expect now. (However, ancient Roman windows were still very useful, as they presented "an often-overlooked advance in heating technology (allowing solar heat to enter a home or building while preventing the warmed air from escaping)."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Carrier |first1=Richard |title=The Scientist in the Early Roman Empire |date=2017 |publisher=Pitchstone Publishing |location=Durham, North Carolina |isbn=978-1-63431-106-9 |page=218}}</ref>) In 1154, [[Muhammad al-Idrisi|Al-Idrisi]] described glass windows as a feature of the palace belonging to the king of the [[Ghana Empire]].<ref>{{cite book | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=umyHqvAErOAC&dq=Ghana+Empire+glass+window&pg=PA564 | title= Encyclopedia of African History 3-Volume Set| page= 564|author= Kevin Shillington |author-link= Kevin Shillington| publisher= [[Routledge]] | isbn= 978-1-135-45670-2 |date= 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last= Fage | first=J. D. | title=Ancient Ghana: A Review Of The Evidence | journal=Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana | volume= 3 | issue= 2 | pages= 3–24 | year= 1957| jstor= 41405704}}</ref>

Over the centuries techniques were developed to shear through one side of a blown glass [[Cylinder (geometry)|cylinder]] and produce thinner rectangular window panes from the same amount of glass material. This gave rise to tall narrow windows, usually separated by a vertical support called a [[mullion]]. Mullioned glass windows were the windows of choice{{when|date=January 2023}} among the European well-to-do, whereas paper windows were economical and widely used in ancient China, Korea, and Japan. In England, glass became common in the windows of ordinary homes only in the early 17th century, whereas windows made up of panes of flattened animal horn were used as early as the 14th century.<ref>{{cite book|last=Langley|first=Andrew|title=Medieval Life|series= Eyewitness|year= 2011 |publisher= Dorling Kindersley|isbn=978-1-4053-4545-3|page=16}}</ref>

Modern-style floor-to-ceiling windows became possible only after the industrial [[plate glass|plate]] [[Glass production|glass-making]] processes were perfected in the late 19th century.<ref>{{cite web|title=Float Glass|url=https://www.architectmagazine.com/technology/float-glass_o}}</ref> Modern windows are usually filled using glass, although transparent plastic is also used.<ref name="britannica.com" />

===Fashions and trends===
{{expand section|date=January 2023}}
{{See also|Church window}}
The introduction of [[lancet window]]s into Western European [[church architecture]] from the 12th century CE built on a tradition of arched windows <ref>{{cite CE1913|wstitle=Windows in Church Architecture |volume= 15 |last= Kleinschmidt |first= Beda Julius |short=1 |quote= In general two or three windows united in a group, as was later the rule in Roman architecture, were even then of frequent occurrence in the early Christian architecture of Asia Minor. The form of the window is nearly everywhere the same; a rectangle that usually has a rounded top, but seldom a straight lintel.}}</ref> inserted between columns,<ref>{{cite CE1913|wstitle=Windows in Church Architecture |volume= 15 |last= Kleinschmidt |first= Beda Julius |short=1 | quote = The place of the window was determined by the architectural membering of the basilica, the distance between two columns generally indicating the position of a window.}}</ref> and led not only to [[tracery]] and elaborate [[Medieval stained glass|stained-glass]] windows but also to a long-standing motif of pointed or rounded window-shapes in ecclesiastical buildings, still seen in many churches today.

Peter Smith discusses overall trends in early-modern rural Welsh window architecture:
<blockquote>
Up to about 1680 windows tended to be horizontal in proportion, a shape suitable for lighting the low-ceilinged rooms that had resulted from the insertion of the upper floor into the hall-house. After that date vertically proportioned windows came into fashion, partly at least as a response to the Renaissance taste for the high ceiling. Since 1914 the wheel has come full circle and a horizontally proportioned window is again favoured.<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Smith
 |first1               = Peter
 |author-link1         = Peter Smith (architectural historian)
 |editor-last1         = Thirsk
 |editor-first1        = Joan
 |editor-link1         = Joan Thirsk
 |year                 = 1985
 |chapter              = 21 Rural Building in Wales
 |title                = The Agrarian History of England and Wales
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=EAA9AAAAIAAJ
 |volume               = 5: 1640-1750 2: Agrarian change
 |publication-place    = Cambridge
 |publisher            = Cambridge University Press
 |page                 = 781
 |isbn                 = 9780521257756
 |access-date          = 18 January 2023
}}
</ref>
</blockquote>

The spread of [[Plate glass|plate-glass]] technology made possible the introduction of picture windows (in [[Levittown, Pennsylvania]],<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Rybczynski
 |first1               = Witold
 |author-link1         = Witold Rybczynski
 |date                 = 13 May 2008
 |orig-date            = 2007
 |chapter              = Ranchers, Picture Windows and Morning Rooms
 |title                = Last Harvest: From Cornfield to New Town: Real Estate Development from George Washington to the Builders of the Twenty-First Century, and Why We Live in Houses Anyway
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=rkuvkjyRGG0C
 |publication-place    = New York
 |publisher            = Simon and Schuster
 |page                 = 207
 |isbn                 = 9780743235976
 |access-date          = 18 January 2023
 |quote                = The casual, spread-out ranch house [...] by 1950 accounted for nine out of ten new houses. [...] Its one extravagance was a large window facing the street - the picture window. As far as I have been able to determine, picture windows made their first appearance in Levittown, Pennsylvania.
}}
</ref> founded 1951–1952{{Clarify|reason=What was founded?|date=July 2024}}).

Many [[Modernity|modern day]] windows may have a [[window screen]] or mesh, often made of [[Aluminium|aluminum]] or [[Fiberglass|fibreglass]], to keep [[Bug (insect)|bugs]] out when the window is opened. Windows are primarily designed to facilitate a vital connection with the outdoors, offering those within the confines of the building visual access to the everchanging events occurring outside. The provision of this connection serves as an integral safeguard for the health and well-being of those inhabiting buildings, lest they experience the detrimental effects of enclosed buildings devoid of windows. Among the myriad criteria for the design of windows, several pivotal criteria have emerged in daylight standards: location, time, weather, nature, and people. Of these criteria, windows that are designed to provide views of [[nature]] are considered to be the most important by people.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kent |first1=Michael |last2=Schiavon |first2=Stefano |date=2022 |title=Predicting Window View Preferences Using the Environmental Information Criteria |url=https://escholarship.org/content/qt7rv6936v/qt7rv6936v.pdf?t=rgtbft |journal=LEUKOS |volume=19 |issue=2 |pages=190–209 |doi=10.1080/15502724.2022.2077753 |s2cid=251121476 |access-date=2022-11-09}}</ref>