09. "Lusterlite Porcelain Enamels." Chicago Vitreous Enamel Product Company; Cicero, IL; c.1930s.

Porcelain-enameled steel, created by chemically bonding a mixture of mineral and glass to the metal at very high temperatures, gained popularity in the 1920s as an easily maintained and virtually indestructible product “potentially well suited for a variety of architectural applications.”¹⁶

Chicago Vitreous Enamel Product Company, a prominent American enameling company with a research facility devoted to developing commercial processes for the manufacturing of enameled-steel panels, created Lusterlite.¹⁷ As with Carrara glass, which was popularized around the same period, porcelain enamels were used for a wide variety of exterior and interior purposes, both structural and decorative. And, like structural glass, it also became widely associated with Art Deco and Art Moderne architecture as a reflection of the era’s aesthetic.

^{17. Ibid.↩}