Hot Glass Studio
Year 2001
Type Commercial
Size 30,000 sq. ft.
Client Corning Museum of Glass
Project Team
Ingalill Wahlroos, Project Architect
Flavio Stigliano, Design Team
Engineering
Delta Engineers, Structural Engineering
The Hot Glass Studio is a school where students learn to work with glass as an artistic medium and draws people from all over the world to teach, study and learn about glassmaking. Located in an existing building by Wallace Harrison (1951) that consists of a 480-foot-long glass block wall, the new design features a long aluminum entrance ramp that slices into the original façade at an acute angle. A plane of glass cantilevers beyond the façade and is angled to capture reflected views of the Summer Stage and the Corning Museum of Glass. The oblique angles continue inside the Studio, inviting visitors into the space to explore the wonders of art glassmaking.
In addition to a large hot shop with multiple glory holes and amphitheater seating, the Studio features lampworking shops, studios for casting, sandblasting and other cold working techniques, a hot glass studio with multiple stations for glassblowing for walk-in visitors, classrooms, mezzanine offices, a flex multi-purpose space and a fine art gallery.
The Hot Glass Studio is part of the Corning Museum of Glass campus in Corning, New York that includes the Corning North Wing Expansion by Thomas Phifer (2015), the Rakow Library by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (2002), the Corning Museum of Glass by Smith-Miller+ Hawkinson (2000), the Glass Museum by Gunnar Birkerts (1981) and the Steuben Factory by Harrison Abramowitz (1951).
The Hot Glass Studio and the Summer Stage were conceived, designed and constructed together, and are linked by geometries that reach across a dividing parking lot. Together, these projects provide a living laboratory that explore the beauty and experiential nature of glass.
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