contemporary techniques in architectural glass - International ...

Recommendations
57
The number of workers, about sixty five, and the multiple projects requires the studio to be well
organized. There is a studio head and each job has a project manager. They liaise to ensure
smooth progress of each job through the various stages of fabrication. The whole operation
appears well organized but labour intensive. Some artists will only visit the studio a few times
while their project is being fabricated while others prefer to stay and work on it themselves.
The skill and experience of the Derix artisans enables them to advise the artists, suggest
different techniques that could be tried and to make artistic decisions in the absence of
the artist.
This appears to blur the line between artist and artisan but the artists seem happy to make
use of these skills. The studio carries a large stock of glass and has a close relationship with
the Lamberts glass factory. This enables the studio to provide coloured glass for smaller
projects from their stock and order specific colours and quantities for larger jobs.
As most of the jobs need to be transported to distant locations there is a packing department.
Most of the finished work is packed into custom made crates and this needs to be done with
care as breakages would be costly for the studio. There can be no doubt that Derix works
well and gets the results. It is a good model for such studio operations.