Today, the furnaces are powered by natural gas and the potash is created in a lab, but Saint-Louis still sources much of its sand and water from the surrounding forest.īefore that glass leaves the workshop, it will have been handled by 28 different people over the course of 25 days.įor years, the workshop made plain glass in relative anonymity. And it sourced potash, a substance that helps sand melt at a lower temperature, from the forest’s ferns.
The workshop also drew sand, an ultrafine white grit that’s nothing like beach sand, from the forest floor. At Saint-Louis, water was piped in from surrounding streams to cool the pieces as glass cutters made the intricate incisions for which the company became known. Water was-and is-equally crucial to glassmaking. If you search online for the locations of venerable French glassmakers-Lalique, Meisenthal, Baccarat-you’ll find yourself not in cities, but in plots of Google Map green.īut trees were only the first ingredient. So savvy glassmakers built their factories near forests in the most remote corners of the country. In 1586, when the workshop was built, furnaces required a massive, steady supply of wood to generate the Hades-like temperatures that melt sand into glass. The Saint-Louis Cristallerie workshop is located in Saint-Louis-lès-Bitche, France.Īs in a fairy tale, the answer lies in the forest.
0 kommentar(er)
