Unveiling the Beauty of Heritage: St. Margaret Catholic Parish Church in Apetlon, Austria, Adorns Itself with Edgetech’s Colored Glass Windows
Apetlon, Austria, proudly boasts the St. Margaret Catholic parish church, recognized as a local heritage site in the picturesque Burgenland municipality. In a carefully planned endeavor, the parish’s long-standing desire for colored church windows came to fruition in September 2023. Berlin artist Marie-Luise Dähne played a pivotal role in achieving this vision, not only bringing abstract beauty but also strategically reducing the intensity of sunlight. Dähne’s artwork, depicting the life and martyrdom of St. Margaret of Antioch, adorns the windows with a narrative touch that preserves the view of the natural surroundings.
The meticulous execution of Dähne’s design involved manual replication by skilled craftsmen at the renowned Paderborn workshop for glass painting. Using ceramic colors, the motifs were transferred onto 6 mm tempered safety glass panes, ranging in formats from 1.6 by 1.3 meters to 2.6 by 1.4 meters. These intricately designed panes were then fused at 600 degrees Celsius.
Preserving the architectural integrity, the authorities overseeing monument protection mandated curved panes. Vandaglas Döring Berlin, a specialist in glass production, took charge of crafting the 3D-molded insulating glass units, incorporating CurvePerformDGU from CurvePerformMono “Freeform curved” outer panes. The insulating glass units featured a flat laminated safety glass serving as an ornamental counter pane. As part of the glass renovation, an energy-efficient window modernization was also on the agenda. Dow 3362 and the flexible Edgetech Super Spacer® TriSeal SG were chosen for the edge seal, ensuring both durability and energy efficiency.
Carsten Kunert, site manager at Vandaglas Döring, shared insights on the project, stating, “The convex cavities are molded out of the flat pane. This looks unspectacular at first glance, but the geometry of multi-axis curved panes is complex, making it difficult to predict material behavior. We chose the flexible Super Spacer spacers for the Apetlon insulating glass units, relying on their ease of application, wind load resistance, and significant contribution to energy efficiency by eliminating thermal bridges at the glass edge.”
Source: Edgetech with additional information added by GlassBalkan
