There's much more use of stained glass ('Glas in Lood' as they call it) over there than in the UK, with even modern buildings and shops using some coloured glass to soften the light coming in, and to give some colour to light going out (at night).
One bar we found - 't Lommertje on Bos en Lommerweg - has large panels in all the outer windows, with the leaded panels encapsulated in double glazed units (partly for insulation, and partly, no doubt, for security - the panels would be very vulnerable to damage). Somehow this has rather more style than the sterile uPVC units you see in shop and café windows in the UK:
Most of the designs we saw made maximum use of straight lines - straight cuts being much easier to get right than curves, greatly reducing the labour cost of each panel. Here are a few examples:
In at least one case I saw a leaded panel fitted behind a conventional uPVC window (rather than bei9ng encapsulated within it). I've been planning to try that for some time, and it will be one of my next projects.
One glass-related observation I did make - in the otherwise wonderful Rembrandtshuis museum, the leaded windows of the 17th century building have obviously been restored, with new leads, and some glass lights being replaced. Unfortunately, it's clear which lights have been replaced - they have used modern 3mm glass (optically perfect) whereas the old 17th century stuff had a few ripples in it. I did wonder whether they could get something like clear water glass, which would work better; I've used red and pastel water glass in the past but I wasn't sure if clear is available. Later that day we went to the 't Lommertje, where some of the lights are clear water glass! I will be reviewing Rembrandshuis for Tripadvisor soon, I'm not sure whether everyone will feel it a fair criticism but, in fact, the glass in the windows would have had a significant impact on the light available to the artist - so it should really be right.
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