Response to “Windows in My Village”

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 images to enlarge

• 
  Figure 3
  Outswinging casement sash.
  Cross Sections: A, head jamb;
  B,meeting styles; C,
  side jambs; D, sill.
• 
  Figure 4
  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^thcentury, 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).

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