The biggest reason to use glass as part of a major architectural installation is that it has a presence and unique relationship to light and colour that no other material can replicate.
Whilst this is perhaps best epitomised through the use of dichroic glass and its ability to transform the ambience of a room depending on how the light hits it, other forms of glass colourwork, such as enamelling, have also established a presence by combining opaque patterns and textures with the transparent background.
Astonishingly, painting glass objects actually predates glassblowing by over a thousand years and came into existence at around the same time as the invention of early, primitive synthetic glass itself.
Roughly dated to 1425 BC, an Ancient Egyptian glass perfume jug is the earliest surviving object that has been decorated with enamel glass, in order to create a distinct set of yellow decorations on top of a turquoise base.
It is unlikely that it is amongst the first ever pieces of enamelled glass, as a curator for the British Museum noted that whilst the yellow enamel had not fused to the glass particularly effectively, the white dots looked far better and suggested significant tradition went into the design.
The vase itself, a mere 8.7cm high, was found in the tomb of the Pharaoh Thutmose III, a warrior pharaoh known for never losing an engagement, but also credited for advances in painting, architecture and glasswork.
What makes such a small perfume jug so special is that it would be nearly 1400 years before conventional glassmaking methods were created, with this jug being created using an earlier system of core-formed glass.
What it proved was that the instinct to decorate, design and create grand pieces of glass architecture was in place for thousands of years before the means were available, befitting the tradition of a material that turned out to be so adaptable.