Romance Villa

This window is almost colourless, and that is a decision rather than an omission. Textured clear glass lets the light of Đà Lạt through unchanged — a corridor dyed one colour is a corridor that only works at one hour of the day.

Glass does not move with the seasons and needs no maintenance; the only job is cleaning it. For a window at the end of a corridor, where nobody can easily reach, that is the practical reason to make it in leaded glass rather than in something that has to be repainted.

An arched window at the end of a corridor, and the corridor was built around it.

The ground is grained glass, almost colourless, so the Đà Lạt light passes through without dyeing the whole walkway. The colour is only at the border: a rose vine running round the edge of the arch, and the villa's name, handwritten, set in the middle.

The arch decides how the panel is divided: the pieces have to follow the curve rather than cut across it, or the arch reads as a rectangle with rounded corners. The vault of the corridor repeats the same curve, so a small error is visible from the far end.

Cutting a long curve is the hard part: the wheel has to travel in one pass, and stopping halfway gives a break rather than a cut. The pieces were laid out on the bench against the drawing before any soldering, because an arched opening allows no adjustment once it is in.