A rendering of the facade of the new UrbanGlass, which is scheduled to reopen with a totally renovated facility in 2013.
At 9:30 this morning, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg joined city officials and UrbanGlass executive director Dawn Bennett and vice chair Carol Yorke for a ceremonial groundbreaking event to mark the start of construction of a new facility to house the Brooklyn, New York, non-profit open-access glass center. A formal ceremony at a nearby dance nonprofit brought together city officials with representatives of the area’s nonprofits, which will be getting higher visibility in this downtown Brooklyn neighborhood thanks to the UrbanGlass reNEWal Project designed by architect Thomas Leeser.
The renovation project of the historic 1918 Strand Theatre where UrbanGlass has occupied the third floor with a 17,000-square-foot glass studio, gallery, and administrative offices since the early 1990s, will completely overhaul the nonprofit art center’s infrastructure to make it state-of-the art. One of the most visible changes for this previously hard-to-find location will be the addition of a first-floor gallery and retail space on bustling Fulton Street to raise awareness of the presence of a working glass studio in the heart of an emerging arts district.
“The new UrbanGlass will be both a state-of-the-art energy efficient glassworking facility and a cultural destination that offers the public a unique opportunity to engage in the exciting artistic medium of glass,” said UrbanGlass executive director Bennett.
UrbanGlass is a leading resource for both aspiring and established artists wishing to create with glass. It fosters innovation and advance the use and appreciation of glass as a creative medium. Founded in 1977 by artists Richard Yelle and Erik Erikson as the New York Experimental Glass Workshop, UrbanGlass was the first artist-access glass center in the United States and is now the largest. Previously, those interested in working in glass could only do so at art schools, in factories, or by building their own studios. When UrbanGlass opened its doors, glass as an art medium became available for the first time to a wide range of artists.
More information is available at www.urbanglass.org.