Welcome to Architecture Week!

Reading about the new architecture for the Beijing Olympics and emailing with a good friend who just finished architecture school gave me the idea of focusing a week of blog entries on architecture. An everyday art, architecture is unique in its capacity to take on a multitude of roles simultaneously. Many of us pay no attention, but I’ve always been fascinated by the power architecture has to enlighten, depress, join and more... Photo By: Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times

Today’s work is The Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art. Opening in 2006, the Glass Pavilion is the home of the museum’s world renowned glass collection. In addition to gallery space there are also glassmaking studios used by artists for their work as well as demonstrations and classes. All exterior walls are made of glass and most interior walls as well. The Pavilion functions on its own as a work of art in addition to a gallery, classroom, and historical symbol of the history of glass in the Toledo area. Read this excellent review of the building in the New York Times.

The American Studio Glass Movement was born in Toledo in 1962. Before this time, while glass was beautifully made there never was a focus on it as a form of sole artistic expression. It remained utilitarian and was not born as a fine art.

A couple interesting bits of info: the entrance to the pavilion stands Photo By: Fabrizio Constantini f or The New York Times
directly across from the entrance to the main museum across the street, in order to provide the opportunity to gaze from one to the other, modern to traditional…

This is the first work to be completed in the United States by the architecture pair Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa who work as SANAA Ltd. They recently completed the New Museum of Contemporary art on the Bowery in Manhattan.

Check out this Flickr page full of images