Windows in My Village

by Jim Hausman responds to Rhonda Roland Shearer's
"Marcel Duchamp's Impossible Bed and Other "Not" Readymade Objects: A Possible Route of Influence
from Art To Science (Part I & II)"
(with reply by Rhonda Roland Shearer)

 

 

Click to enlarge
Figure 1	Figure 2
Marcel Duchamp, Fresh Widow, 1920 (back)	Marcel Duchamp, Fresh Widow, 1920 (front)

To Rhonda Roland Shearer -

Contrary to your comment on "Fresh Widow," French windows *do* open in -- that way the shutters can open out!

 

Jim Hausman
resident of Chavenay, France

 

 

 

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Rhonda Roland Shearer responds:

Dear Jim Hausman,

Please send us photographs of your local French windows. We're interested.

Below, you'll find two illustrations (Fig. 3 and Fig. 4, pp. 1024, 1025) from De Chiara, Joseph, Julius Panero and Martin Zelnik (eds.) Time Saver Standards for Interior Design and Space Saving (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1991). These refernces are among those that led me to my claim that French windows swing outwards. Please note captions and text below:

Click to enlarge		Click to enlarge
Figure 3		Figure 4
Outswinging casement sash. Cross Sections: A, head jamb; B, meeting styles; C, side jambs; D, sill.		Solid-section steel outswinging casement sash. Cross sections: A, head jamb; B, side jamb; C, sill.

In the book History of Interior Design and Furniture (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1997), author Robbie G. Blakemore writes that starting in the second half of the 17^th century, windows "sometimes rose from the floor to almost ceiling level and had double valves (sometimes termed French windows), in which the casements pivoted from the jamb […] When wood frames replaced the stone transoms and mullions and with rectangular panes it was possible for the casements to open outward." (p. 164).

 

Figs. 1, 2
©2002 Succession Marcel Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris. All rights reserved.

 

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