DEVELOPING THE VISION FOR WATERFORD AS AN INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR GLASS DESIGN AND MAKING
stability. Their story echoes the demise in 2009 of the Waterford Crystal factory with a redundant workforce of over 1,500 people and the closure of their visitor centre which welcomed over 330,000 visitors annually to the region. Meisenthal Glassware was founded in 1704 in the Bitche region in eastern France. In its heyday the facility produced tens of millions of pieces of utility glassware. The unfortunate demise of the company has been put down to the lack of reinvestment in modernisation of production techniques and facilities. The legacy of the glassworks refused to die however and the former glass workers came together in 1975 to set up a Glass Museum on the old site. After many years and many stages of conversion on the site of the old glassware factory, the CIAV – International Centre for Glass Art was founded, as a public institution aimed with (slightly ironically) preservation of the technical heritage of traditional glass production, preserving the story of the region and its historical association with glass making and utilising contemporary design in conjunction with these traditional skills and production techniques to initiate new cultural, economic and tourism elements around the material and craft of glass. The centre provides a research, education and production facility alongside designer studios and glass-making facilities for established and emerging artists in glass. It enables them space and time to develop their practice and the possibilities of collaboration into new techniques and interpretations for glass. Contemporary designers are brought in to add to the collection and revisit the tradition, taking their inspiration from the heritage traditions in glass making. Meisenthal has rebuilt and reenergised its glass community, finding new ways of working outside of glass production and design and the centre also houses a multidisciplinary exhibition venue and a Museum of Glass. The CIAV has developed a specific response to tourism by providing demonstrations, tours, lectures, face-to-face meetings with artists etc in its dedicated museum and retail spaces for glass. Their offer provides immersive cultural experiences for visitors and they have combined these visitor elements with diversification of the glass economy in the region in terms of provision of interdisciplinary projects and commissions including architectural and structural glass and design/prototyping, industrial design and a learning dimension for new glass technologies. Since 1992 almost 350 artists have been in residency in the CIAV and it now provides full-time employment for 16 staff members and 6 seasonal workers. Other spin-off employment opportunities are evident in the ancillary hospitality sector during busy times at the centre and especially at Christmas (given the region’s long association 32 | Page