Click here to read the full issue. Features include: The Pavilion at Brookfield Place; The New School University Center, Hunter’s Point Campus, Queens Museum, Polonsky Shakespeare Center, Belfer Research Building, Madison Square Garden, and Lehman College Science Facility.

From the editor:

I recently had reason to browse through several decades worth of Metals in Construction and came away awed by the advances in curtain wall technology as chronicled in past articles. When—and why—did designers begin thinking of a building’s exterior wall as more than just a static enclosure, one that modulates the elements instead of bowing to them? Was it in response to the energy crisis of the seventies? Did the introduction of digital design tools mark the beginning? Were advances in the development of new materials the instigator?

In fact, one learns, it began much earlier with these influences only a few among many that have played pivotal roles in curtain wall development over the past century. As a result, today’s building enclosure is the element most influential in delivering the desired energy performance. In achieving this prominence, its potential as a catalyst for building-wide change has inspired some of the most stimulating architecture of any era, much of it and the history behind it illustrated in the recently released KINETIC ARCHITECTURE, a new book by Charles D. Linn, FAIA, and Russell Fortmeyer, writers well-known to New York’s design community. Today, with rising greenhouse gas emissions and resource depletion ever- growing concerns, any serious book on architecture examines a building’s environmental performance if it is to be influential. This book is no exception. Although its pages are filled with detailed case studies and striking photography, Linn and Fortmeyer profess their book to be about energy rather than buildings.

In focusing on facades with dynamic components that help conserve energy, they provide a valuable resource for architects, engineers, builders, and others interested in this architectural evolution. More information about it can be found on our websites, https://www.siny.org and www.ominy.org. And of course, the reader will continue to find articles on innovative curtain wall projects printed in this magazine.

Gary Higbee, AIA, Editor