Bring a 10-ton hotshop to Paris? No problem. The Museum’s GlassLab container hotshop was set up yesterday in the Tuileries Garden next to les Arts decoratifs, the premier decorative arts museum in France.
On Tuesday, October 22, we’ll begin live GlassLab design sessions with (mostly) French designers chosen by our partners at les Arts decoratifs, as well as a few American designers who’ve worked with us before. The list includes Arik Levy, Sylvain Dubuisson, Matali Crasset and Wendell Castle. You can view the full schedule and learn more about the designers at http://www.cmog.org/glasslab/events/paris.
But exactly how do you bring a working hotshop from upstate New York across the Atlantic to Paris? It’s possible thanks to an innovative container design by Paul Haigh.
How to remove a 10-ton hotshop from the back of a truck.
The hotshop is built into a 20-foot container that’s shipped across the Atlantic and loaded onto the back of a trailer. The truck arrives close to the final location. The container has hydraulic legs at each corner that lower to the ground allowing the truck to simply drive off and leave the container behind. In Paris, it was easily lifted off the truck into the right spot.
The container,which holds all the equipment necessary for glassmaking—from blowing irons to a glassmelting furnaces of 130 pounds—opens up to form the hotshop. A stage can be built in front to suit the location.
The hotshop will spend a lovely October weekend in Paris warming up for our first GlassLab sessions on Tuesday with Marco Mencacci and the Ecole Camondo, a private college that is part of les Arts decoratifs.
GlassLab ovens are warming up today in Paris. That’s the Eiffel Tower in the background.