Rachel Swetnam Y4
Glasmuseum. The Glassmuseum in Lucerne, Switzerland, serves as both a glass-blowing foundry and a museum for local glass-blowing works, and it straddles the central promenade and the River Reuss, which runs through the city. Lucerne takes pride in being known as a cultural center and center for tourism. The River Reuss which runs through the town is a cherished site as many of the town’s historic structures line its path.
The Glassmuseum is not only powered by a 17th century needle dam and power plant, but also utilizes the river in the glass-blowing process by means of lowering the hot glass works through a void in the floor into the river for quenching. After a trip to Switzerland, the light-reflective qualities of the river at night as the painted timber structures and lights stretch down from the horizon served as the initial inspiration for the project. After doing water reflection and mirror studies to in-vestigate this effect, I made a teleidoscope to collect refracted views of my sketches and model.
I extracted the line work from these images and then extruded them to create the formal language of the museum. In response to the water’s reflective qualities, the building is made of mostly coloured glass and concrete to create intentionality in the placement of cast coloured light and shadows. The glass-blowing artisans working in the foundry to create the works that are exhibited a mu-seum space that celebrates the materiality and the qualities of the work it displays.