Transparency, as it was manifested in the architecture of modernism, was a material condition. In the Crystal Palace, it was a condition made possible by the strength and lightness of steel framing which supported
standardized and mass-produced glass elements. This material capability was credited with a higher degree of clarity in visual phenomena, which in turn was equated to social emancipation. Glass, which casts no shadow, was associated with utopian vision. Modernist visionaries such as Bruno Taut, Walter Gropius, Hans Scharoun and Adolf Behne, believed glass had a collective purity, both politically and morally symbolizing liberation