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Sights and Attractions in Småland: Glassworks

The Kingdom of Crystal

Within a radius of just a few dozen miles in the counties of Kalmar and Kronoberg, you will find some of the most famous glassworks in the world. You can easily visit several of them in the course of just one day. And the attractions that they offer are not only exciting and informative - they are free of charge as well.

Glass, more than any other material awakens our imagination. It can change appearance and colour, be strong and fragile, sharp and soft at the same time. Basically, glass is nothing more than molten sand. You take fine sand and use high heat to reduce it to a viscous mass. To speed the melting, you add soda and potash. The basic formula is very old, as attested by archaeological findings in Egypt dated back to 2 000 BC. Some 1 900 years later, the Romans discovered how to blow glass using an iron pipe.
King Gustav Vasa was Sweden's first glass pioneer, founding the first glassworks in the middle of 1500s in Stockholm. But large amounts of fuel was needed to the furnaces and the fuel could only be found in Småland, in the large forests. The Kingdom of Crystal was born when the first batch of glass was melted at Kosta in 1742.

Kosta

Many of the glassworks in Småland arose as ironworks. Kosta is today the oldest glasswork in Sweden and is still making handmade glass. It was founded in 1742 by the county governors Koskull and Stal. The name Kosta was formed by the initials in the founders' names.
Kosta Boda invests in advanced designs.Ann Wåhlström, Göran Wärff and Anna Ehrner are the designers of Kosta Glassworks today. In its exhibition room, you will see the glassworks' innovative designs, as well as older glass showing styles that have passed.
In the Glasshouse you can experience all the glass-workers move as if they were choreographed in front of the furnaces. The historical bonds are strong at Kosta. The glassworks is often called the mother of the Swedish glass industry, because during the 1800s it was not unusual for glass-blowers in a new glassworks to have been trained in Kosta.

Orrefors

It all began as an ironworks in 1726. Glass manufacture was not started until 1898. The first products were practical wares of everyday use such as jars and inkwells. After the artists Simon Gate and Edward Hald were engaged in 1916-17, production took a more artistic turn. This new creativity quickly led to Orrefors' international breakthrough at the Paris exhibition in 1925. The first prize went to Simon Gate's magnificent Bacchus Bowl. You can see a copy of it at the Orrefors Museum.

Swedish glass and crystal is world famous. The Orrefors glass museum contains the history of glass. There you can follow its development in three departments. From Gate and Hald to today's modern artists. Special exhibitions of various themes are often arranged in the museum. The large permanent hall in the centre displays contemporary art crystal, whilst the other exhibition rooms display the whole Orrefors range.
Today's artists, tied to Orrefors in 1995, are Lena Bergström, Gunnar Cyrén, Lars Hellsten,Jan Johansson, Helén Krantz, Erika Lagerbielke, Anne Nilsson, Marrti Rytkönen and Per B Sundberg.

Sandviks glass has its own room, where the emphasis is placed on thin, elegant service glass. The Nobel table service is already a classic. It is a series of stylish glasses with hand-painted details in pure gold, created by one of Sweden's best known designers, Gunnar Cyrén.

The Crystal shop. There is a second-rate shop at the glassworks where you can buy Orrefors crystal. You can also go on a guided tour around the glassworks to see the glass-blowers at work. Orrefors is one of Sweden's most popular tourist attractions with half a million visitors each year.

The gallery "Fina Stugan"

In Åfors glassworks, Bertil Vallien's sand-casting method was born and it is in the large studio that Ulrika Hydman-Vallien's glass is painted and fired - goblets, vases, bowls and plates, all with snakes, straggly birds and faces that egg the imagination. Åfors glassworks gives its designers space to use the entire colour spectrum A freedom Gunnel Sahlin uses to create a magnificent rainbow. The gallery "Fina Stugan" next to the river is reserved for these three famous artists; three designers with totally different styles but with a similar, burning desire to extend the glass frontiers.

The Glass Painters

Photo
Photo: Copyright © Kosta-Boda


Table and decoration glass from all glassworks owned by Orrefors Kosta Boda is send to the Stömbergshyttan Glassworks, the glass painting studio. In here, the final decoration is laid on. Birds and crescent moons on Ulrika Hydman-Vallien's Inca Vases, as well as the golden legs on Gunnar Cyréns Nobel glassware.


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