Everyone loves glass — until it rains down from the sky. Glass is sleek, sexy and it sells. Architects love it, builders adore it and consumers demand it. But engineers can ruin the love-in.

The battle between architect and engineer is a time-honoured tradition dating back to the invention of chalk and tools. Architects, engineers say, are superficial, concerned with nothing but looks. Engineers, architects say, are smart, but unsophisticated droogs obsessed with rules and ruining masterpieces.

Usually the two sides are copacetic. But glass leaves the two symbiotic professions at odds. And there’s tons of glass in Toronto. Some of it is now exploding from balconies 30 storeys high and crashing to the ground in the downtown core.