Glass in Glass: Toledo Museum of Art

Part 1: The Glass Pavilion: Forms Playing in Light, by Richard H. Putney Part 2: Ten Highlights of the Glass Collection, by Paula Reich Since its charter in 1901, the Toledo Museum of Art has assembled a magnificent collection of works of art that range in date from antiquity to the present. Edward Drummond Libbey (1854 1925), Toledo's great glass industrialist, would be proud of the Museum he founded and of the vitality of its collections, cultural programs, and wide community support. The glass collection began as early as 1913, in order to show the complete development of the art from antiquity to the present, and the Museum s commitment to the art of glass has stayed current with this mission. Collecting art has gone hand in hand with the growth of the Museum's campus to embrace a family of buildings, a sculpture garden, and landscaping. Like the works of art housed, created, and studied within them, the buildings differ in style, each expressing its distinct purpose and the spirit of the age in which it was made. In 2006, we celebrated the achievement of an outstanding alliance of art and architecture: the reinstallation of Toledo s famous collection of the art of glass in the serenely luminous new Glass Pavilion. The Pavilion is the result of years of dedication by many members of the Toledo community, including donors, officials, Museum Trustees, three Museum directors, and many Museum staff members. Thus, the Pavilion embodies the historic aspirations of northwest Ohio; the talent and vision of the architects; and the skills, courage, and hard work of the craftsmen who built it. The Glass Pavilion was designed by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, lead architects of SANAA Ltd., Tokyo, to serve two complementary purposes museum and studio. Architectural glass is the key to the twin roles. Exterior and interior glass walls divide space, while their transparency encourages visitors to connect objects and activities across boundaries. The Glass Pavilion is thus unique in that it fosters a close physical and transparent relationship between the art in the galleries and the artists in the glassworking studios. This landmark building a work of art in itself continues the legacies of Toledo as the Glass City, Museum founder Edward Drummond Libbey, and the Studio Glass Movement inaugurated here in the 1960s. The Pavilion's design extends a Modernist concept that buildings made of glass symbolize cultural transparency and openness. For millennia, art made with glass has broken new ground, fusing the latest technology with the creative brilliance of artists. The Glass Pavilion propels the Museum and Toledo into the vanguard of twenty-first-century art and architecture.