GASNews October/ November 2011 Volume 22 ... - Glass Art Society

GAS 2012 Venue:
Toledo Museum of
Art’s Glass Pavilion
When GAS members arrive in Toledo in
2012 for the annual conference, they will
attend demonstrations and lectures in
two vastly different venues at the Toledo
Museum of Art. The main structure, which
houses one of the most renowned art
collections in the world, is a Greek revival
building, complete with Ionic columns,
that was designed in 1912 by architects
Edward Green and Harry Wachter. It will
host several lectures and the opening
night reception. But most attendees will
be drawn towards a low-profile structure a
hundred yards away: the Glass Pavilion.
Publicly inaugurated on August 27,
2006, the Toledo Museum of Art’s Glass
Pavilion not only houses one of the world’s
finest international glass collections, but it
has also become an international marvel
of its own. The implementation of a new
process in glass design and fabrication,
the expertise of an internationally
recognized architectural firm and a
postmodern design based on a philosophy
of social transparency make the building
an architectural and social masterwork.
Handpicked in 2000 by a search
committee led by architectural and art
historians, community leaders and
curatorial staff, the Tokyo-based SANAA,
Ltd. was chosen to design the Glass
Pavilion. It was their first US commission;
however, since that time, they have
designed the New Museum of Contemporary
Art in New York and the soon-to-open
Louvre satellite museum in Lens, France.
Principals Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue
Nishizawa were the lead architects on
the project.
At 15 feet tall and 76,000 square
feet, TMA’s Glass Pavilion combines
the most advanced structural, material,
environmental and aesthetic knowledge to
create an elegant building that could not
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TMA’s Glass Pavilion Gallery 3 (floto + warner photo)
have been realized a generation ago. The
one-story structure with basement contains
a glassmaking facility consisting of two
hotshops as well as studios for lampworking,
casting, molding, flatworking
and coldworking. The Glass Pavilion also
includes spaces for loading, storage,
administration, conservation and photography,
along with a multipurpose room for
lectures and seated dinners. It also houses
more than 5,000 glass works of art from
ancient to contemporary times. Emphasizing
the building’s ultimate function,
glass is used in innovative ways architecturally.
Curved glass walls divide the
various spaces in the building while
creating connections between spaces
in a new and unique way. Exterior and
interior glass walls are made of two panes
laminated together for extreme durability.
Although some are larger, most of the
glass-wall panels are eight feet wide and
13 feet, six inches high.
The glass was manufactured by the
Pilkington Glass Company and shipped
to China for fabrication. During this
procedure, the raw glass was shaped into
the exact sizes needed for the construction
of the Glass Pavilion. Since there are no
right-angled corners on the exterior of the
building, much of the glass was rounded to
fit the corner areas, and other pieces were
shaped to fit specific spaces. The finished
glass was shipped to Toledo for installation
in the Glass Pavilion.
The glass walls were installed by
setting one wall segment into a grooved
channel in the floor. Within the channel,
a compressible material allows the wall
segment to settle and move within the
groove. The top of the glass panel is held
in place by a similar channel in the ceiling.
The installation technique allows the glass
to shift and twist in place without causing
gaps to occur in the wall.
An interior, 3/4-inch, steel wall surrounds
one unique space, and demonstrates
an innovative use of steel structure,
functioning both as room divider and part
of the structural system. In addition, there
are 35 reinforced steel supports, ranging
from three to six inches in diameter. Some
of these supports are visible and others
are located within the opaque walls.
The Glass Pavilion’s wiring and HVAC
ducts are located in the floors and ceiling
of the building, as well as in the few
opaque dry-walled sections of the first
floor. The basement level uses all standard
construction methods. Portions of the