This evening I have the honor of showing our work at Gensler's San Francisco headquarters. This is our second invitation to present there this year and I'm looking forward to chatting with tonight's guests. These will include Gensler's own design team as well as designers from HOK, SOM, and IDA. I'm bringing along several pieces of our carved and illuminated crystal, deep-carved marble, and breathtaking three-dimensional crystal sculptures.
Earlier in the year we were invited to make a presentation to Gensler's San Francisco designers showing them how luminous carved and etched glass can enhance the work they are doing for residential and commercial interiors.
We called the presentation "From Grit to Gleam," referring to our fabrication process, where we start by sandblasting half-inch-thick panels of crystal with industrial grit, then polish, inlay with gold, build beautiful hardwood bracketing, add (and sometimes program) LED lighting, and install these gleaming panels in hospitals, universities, corporations and homes around country.
To illustrate the journey each project entails, our designer Caroline created a photo essay in the form of a clever accordion-fold brochure, which I have put online for you to enjoy.
The brochure closes with one of my favorite quotes, from John Ruskin, Britain's leading writer on art, architecture and culture in the Victorian era. (Like most of the great men of the Victorian Age, he was vehemently anti-Victorian in his beliefs.)
On those words of wisdom, I'm off to Gensler!