New Architectural Applications for Handmade Art Glass

Contemporary Designers Turn to Time-Honored Material to Imbue Buildings with Color, Light, Craftsmanship, and Style

Innovating designers turn to our Lamberts^® mouth-blown glass in growing numbers to bring color, texture, and a humanizing touch to spaces. The movement can be credited to architects and designers’ growing appreciation for authenticity and artisanal quality.

Ellsworth Kelly’s “Austin” at University of Texas Blanton Museum of Art. Photo by Leonid Furmansky.

Bendheim’s Lamberts^® glass is produced by skilled artisans having learned and honed their craft through the generations. Each sheet begins as a gather of molten glass at the end of a blowpipe. The master glass blower continuously works the molten glass to create an elongated bubble. Other team members join in to remove the ends of the bubble, trim, and form it. The resulting glass cylinder is then cut lengthwise, reheated, opened, and flattened into a sheet. The process is detailed in this five-minute “How It’s Made” video:

Blending history and modernity, art glass has become an increasingly popular choice to bring color and light to a wide range of buildings: new transit hubs, courthouses, hospitals, theaters, hotels, and restaurants. With non-residential building projected to increase at four percent in 2019, the demand for art glass is expected to continue to grow. Homeowners are also embracing the material, commissioning contemporary “stained” glass for custom windows, doors, and sidelites.

“This glass has a soul. It’s what draws people to it.”

In addition to a vast range of in-stock colors and designs, Bendheim’s mouth-blown glass can create a soothing effect through its signature texture. As light filters through the gently wavy glass, it appears as if reflecting off a pool of water. The effect creates a subtle connection to nature and lends a richer and more dynamic sense of the space. It is ideal for healthcare, hospitality, and transit facilities. The Children’s Hospital of Alabama in Birmingham, Alabama features mouth-blown Lamberts^® glass in art panels by Guy Kemper, reaching 19 feet high by 5 feet wide. Travelers through Indianapolis Airport in Indianapolis, Indiana can view brightly colored art glass by Martin Donlin, spanning 5,000-square-feet. Ellsworth Kelly’s “Austin” at University of Texas Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas, features unadorned sheets of the Lamberts^® glass to bring playful colored light into the space.

BWI Baltimore/Washington International Airport, Baltimore, MD by Guy Kemper. Photo by Alan Gilbert

“It is rewarding to see how the use of our Lamberts glass has evolved over the decades,” said Robert Jayson, Bendheim’s President. “From traditional leaded stained glass, as it dominated spiritual architecture decades ago, to some of today’s most celebrated public architecture… This glass has a soul. It’s what draws people to it.”

As the exclusive supplier of mouth-blown Lamberts glass in North America, we stock more than 500 colors, patterns, and textures in sheet sizes of approximately 24 by 36 inches.