Expansion of the ever-popular Chrysler Museum Perry Glass Studio represents an exciting future for the Museum and recognition of the distinguished international reputation of the glass-making program. The renovation and new addition will put the glass-making process on display, feature the history of glass as an artistic medium, and accommodate art objects. The program includes a theater-style performance hot shop, glass-making studios, gallery, classrooms, event space, retail space, catering kitchen, and roof terrace. It will be a bold extension of the Museum and its educational programs.
The project creates a new Museum “face” on Duke Street, featuring layers of transparency. It will have no front or back, but will be attractive from all sides, and create a formal connection between the Glass Studios and the Museum, with views of the glass furnaces visible from the Museum. It also will connect with Norfolk’s NEON District on a path marked with a series of glass “breadcrumbs” for wayfinding. At ground zero for Norfolk’s flooding challenges, the new structure will employ strategies to handle rainwater, and it will be elevated four feet above the existing glass studio in order to be resilient to repeat nuisance flooding events in the District.
The Glass Studio will set an example for coastal resilience, demonstrating to others how to thrive at the bottom of the watershed in an area plagued with recurrent flooding. Coastal Resilience goals for the building include: native, salt-tolerant plantings, cisterns to collect rainwater for summer irrigation, connection to high ground to create a bridge for egress, new addition elevated 4-feet above the existing building to keep it above the flood plain, on-site water storage to help alleviate flooding in the NEON district, new addition planned around existing trees and new trees that soak up water during rain events, landscaped areas act as a “green sponge” to soak up water, and the building and grounds become a teaching tool for the community to increase the region’s resilience to coastal flooding.
