Nearly any stained glass craftsperson will tell you that this window is technically impossible, that none like it exist. But the Raults placed jewel-like 2 cm “slab” glass (dalle de verre in French) in the same windows as typically coloured segments on standard .5 cm glass; and then set both materials in conventional lead cames. Their approach seems to be unique.
The Rault brothers rejected the 20th century practice of embedding the heavy slab glass in a cement seam, instead using reinforced conventional quarter inch lead cames. They desired the vibrant, hand-chipped edges of dalle to remain exposed so as to refract as much light as possible. Architects were dubious and often insist on a cement matrix for this modern thick glass, as in the work of Gabriel Loire. But the sumptuous results of the Rault approach are visible in thousands of windows in North America and France.
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