I used to live with my grandparents till I was 10. Our house had what people now call - "efficient windows". It's very much different from these ones. They're not as grand as these.
They were huge, square and air - continuous "efficient windows". They're kept open all day long and even all night long. Back then, we were only scared of "aswangs" or the Filipino version of vampires or monsters. Back then there were no worries of thieves. Instead, the more open your windows are, thieves probably think, you have nothing to loose so why bother.
I only remember them closing on stormy nights. We've got plenty of storms in the Philippines on a yearly basis and that's the only time I see each bamboo poles that holds that cover of each window which is made of a pile of bamboo and stitched nipa leaves , come off. As naughty as any kid would be, we'd poke those dried nipa leaves to peek outside and check how high the water was.
I also remember, sitting on the sill so often and getting scolded that I might fall off it cause it wouldn't really be such a high fall but I'll surely get hurt. I also remember, roosters my grandpa owned, flying on each of the sills at dusk, sitting there to fall asleep while we wait for the right time to grab them and put them back their pens.
I don't think I'd see that happen on any of these, nor find someone sitting on the sill of each of these. Every time I look up at any of these grand windows, I can't help but compare. What was life here like back then? Was it lavish? If not, was this what they can call normalcy here back then?
Come to think of it, some of these are even more than a hundred year old or at least almost. Still, I'm soon turning 40 and my grandparents were in their past 60s when I was born so I wonder how capable the first owners of these windows were. Were they expensive? Were they handmade? Come to think of it, some of these are just attic windows, where old stuff are stock in to grow dust.
What amazes me the most is how all of these stood the test of time specially on countries with shitty weathers. These are just a few of the grand windows here and mind you, there's plenty of them.
It saddens me sometimes, to see an old building with such grand windows being put down instead of restored and renovated then replaced with box designs cause we're going after more space and efficiency.
I hope plenty of these still exist till hundreds of years later. They have so much "character" than what most windows look like these days and if we would just admit, it's nice to live on one with such no matter how inefficient, besides, led lights have already been invented. That thumbnail above, it looked like it was smiling at me while I was looking at it, sitting on a park bench.
This content's 100% mine . I took the pics with my D Eye .. Right click on the pic to open it on a new tab.
**TIP :
