M u l l
i o n s
A brief in favor of traditional window mullions.
Window mullions (also called muntins) are the wooden dividers between windowpanes. They are an essential part of traditional architecture, largely because the patterns they create are integral to what designers call "visual texture" on the exterior and interior of a house. It's for this reason that artists often emphasize their effect in renderings such as this:
Here is an example of a fairly typical, modest suburban colonial home, enlivened considerably by true wood mullions in its windows. Without them, the facade of this house would be quite bland. This is because of an interplay of various visual textures (clapboard siding, slate roof, brick chimneys, mullioned windows, and vegetation). The ensemble depends on each and every one of these ingredients for its effect.
The impression is pleasant and welcoming.
The house is also notable for complete stylistic integrity, which is not typical in newer houses. That is, its sides and rear are treated exactly the same as the front, architecturally. Builder houses nowadays often apply 'fake facades' onto shed-like boxes. People accept this, often, because they've never seen anything better.
Now here is what happens with fake window mullions. A perfectly-attractive Cape Cod-style house, with fine masonry and another slate roof (this house is across the street from the previous house, in fact). But the windows have vanished into black holes.
The effect is vacant and forbidding.
Window screens intensify the effect. But as the example below demonstrates, even without screens the reflections caused by uninterrupted sheets of glass on the exterior are disrputive to the overall aesthetic. Notice that when in shadow (such as on the porch) and in sunlight (such as the upper floor window) the fake mullions effectively disappear.
Okay, I need an antidote after those!
Better now. And on to the Arguments ;)
1. First and foremost, my goal is that we should use "simulated divided-lite" (SDL) mullions which are far less expensive than genuine, authentic "true divided-lite" (TDL) mullions--but far more convincing, aesthetically, than fake "grilles" whether they be metal or plastic, and whether they be on the surface of the glass or between the glass (GBG). I have seen designers use the "true divided lite" mullions with insulated (double-paned) glass but I do not believe they justify their (considerable) additional cost.
The "simulated divided lite" window (above) has spacer bars between the glass, which continue the mullion line through the glass providing the effect of a continuous material without compromising the insulating benefits of double-paned glass.
Above: SDL glass (left) and TDL (right)
In practice, except at very close range, these two are mutually indistinguishable; however TDL costs considerably more which is why we make a reasonable compromise with SDL.
Above: snap-in grilles (left) and 'grille-between-the-glass' (right).
Neither of these options produces the shadow lines or "visual texture" (as described above) of the SDL and TDL options. They present an uninterrupted sheet of glass to the exterior, which produces large-scale reflections and generally disrupts the window/wall textural relations on the facade of a house.
C o n t e x t
2. Since the Second World War, builders have generally gravitated toward items made of plastic and aluminum which sometimes sought to mimic the shapes and forms of traditional building materials--some times more successfully than others. Generally the faithfulness (or lack thereof) with which these new items responded to authentic models became more important aesthetically than the materials of which they were composed. Therefore, when designers talk of shoddy 'plastic' or 'aluminum' products they're often really speaking of their appearance rather than the intrinsic nature of the material in question.
3. Fake window grilles originated in trailers and other 'manufactured housing' and slowly migrated to the cheapest speculative builder houses as builders found they could save money without too many homebuyers being wise to it. During the housing boom they have even been found in million-dollar-plus homes in places like Great Falls.
4. Builders do it, lots of people don't know the difference! But builders also like to provide molded, hollow-core "fiberboard" doors--cardboard, really, stamped with a panel design to mimic actual solid wood doors. You'll find these in million-dollar-plus homes, too, because most homebuyers aren't educated and many nowadays did not grow up around authentic architecture to begin with. cf: The Portico Pages
5. Now, your house has its original solid wood doors. Suppose I were to come in and replace them with hollow-core fiberboard doors with pressed imitation panels? You'd string me up, and rightly so. If we built additions, would you want them to have solid wood doors or fake fiberboard doors? Builders now put these in $1million+ homes with regularity now, even though real wood doors cost less than $200 each. Why do they do this? Because they can get away with it. Too many people don't pay attention, and/or didn't grow up in houses with real wood doors, and don't know better. Will I specify fiberboard doors? Nope.
6. Similarly, builders like to install a single overhead lighting fixture--often coupled with a cheap fan--in the center of each room. The ugliest, cheapest kind of lighting and yet many homebuyers don't know any better. Even when builders install recessed lights, they're usually arrayed in a grid pattern without any thought toward fuction or aesthetics. The results are an ergonomic disaster, and visually unpleasant besides. They generally cause people to throw shadows directly upon the surfaces they wish to be lit.
7. However and whenever it happened, a real assault upon your house's architectural integrity was mounted when its original wood windows with true mullions were replaced with plastic windows with fake grilles. The house's stone facade is a thing of great beauty, difficult to replace today except at tremendous cost, and compromising that is a thing I would never want to do. As originally designed, there was a subtle rhythm of visual textures as the stone masonry and windowpanes played off one another. That's been compromised. The obvious solution is to replace the plastic windows in the main (existing) house with quality windows, as time and finances permit (as you're doing in a couple of locations on the rear). At the least,I'd replace the ones on the front stone facade where they detract so greatly from the otherwise handsome apparance of your home.
8. We have already cut out many mullions from the back and sides to save money, and are substituting less-expensive brands and varieties of windows throughout. This is simply where I hope we can draw the line. As an architect, a tragedy of my life is that everywhere I go, I am confronted with the handiwork of amateurs who have taken beautiful old buildings and ruined them. Naturally I care about this more than most people; it's not only a passion of mine, it's my life's work. But for me, it's unbearable even to see these desecrations. To be party to one is something I've never done, and hope never to do.
Thank you for your time.
