ABSTRACT
The ancient Romans not only used window coverings to hold in solar heat for their homes but also relied on such solar heat traps for horticulture so that plants would mature quicker, produce fruits and vegetables out of season, and allow for the cultivation at home of exotic plants from hotter climates. Nineteenth-century architects such as Humphrey Repton brought the sunlit ambiance of the greenhouse right into the home by attaching it onto the south side of a living room or library. American solar architecture began with its indigenous heritage. The Nazis condemned functional architecture as Jewish and when they came to power, a good number of German architects designing solar buildings fled, many ending up in America. Tucson-based architect Arthur Brown, responsible for the solar-absorbing wall described previously, also designed in 1948 the world’s first solar-heated public building. Cheap energy running highly reliable and easy-to-use heating and cooling systems led to an almost universal disinterest in solar design.
