Art drives science? Science drives art?
Seriously, the first thing I thought of when I saw that was “Obi-wan never told you what happened to your father …”
I dunno, that seems like a pretty damn logical way to support that much glass/transparent in situation where it cannot, under any circumstances, fail.
The window in Empire is almost certainly aesthetic, given the limited amount of “Force” (yuk yuk) require to destroy it.
