The Color of Glass

A new room at the Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum 

To mark 100 years since its opening in 1925–6, Die Neue Sammlung is adding some new elements to its content. Glass in all its technical diversity and brilliant colors is the first new theme to be featured in this way. 
 
A purpose-designed exhibition space brings together a selection of highlights: from mass-produced hollow glass for everyday use to unique, fine-art objects made of glass and even architectural designs. 
 
Alongside a window by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright that he originally designed for the legendary Avery Coonley Playhouse, the displays also include a sample section of the choir windows designed by Gerhard Richter for Tholay Abbey. Another piece is the glass prism installation by Aloys Ferdinand Gangkofner, which once adorned the entrance hall of the Osram headquarters in Munich.
 
The three-part work by Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová is an outstanding example of their technique of mould melting, which remains influential in Czech art and beyond even today. Italian and Czech protagonists of Postmodernism draw on countless possibilities of creating with glass, and there are also contemporary works from Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, and the USA.
 
In addition, there is a focus on mass production and its widely varying applications. Here, the categories range from packaging glass to laboratory glass to utility glass, with examples from countries all over the world.
 
The presentation by Die Neue Sammlung not only highlights the fascination exerted by both colored and colorless glass, but also reflects the technical skill, the diverse formal languages, and the differing functional requirements of glass as a medium. 
 
The architecture practice of Office Heinzelmann Ayadi (OHA) has developed a glass exhibition architecture for the space using profile modules from the internationally active Lamberts glass factory in Wunsiedel, which has won awards for its low-emissions production and was thus able to comply with Die Neue Sammlung’s insistence on sustainability.
 
Design, crafts skills, the fine arts and work in the context of architecture are intertwined in a very particular way in this new spatial concept and reflect our interdisciplinary and international orientation.
 
Supported by PIN. Friends of the Pinakothek der Moderne