Museum of Glass, Tacoma (must see)

The Museum of Glass is a contemporary art museum dedicated to glass as a creative medium, with a strong focus on live making, experimentation, and public engagement. Opened in 2002, it was developed as part of a major waterfront renewal effort along the Thea Foss Waterway, an area once shaped by shipyards, factories, and industrial pollution. Its construction became part of a wider transformation of a former Superfund site into a public cultural district, giving the museum a role that extends beyond art.

The building, designed by Canadian architect Arthur Erickson, is best known for its 90-foot tilted Hot Shop cone, which leans at a 17-degree angle. Wrapped in diamond-shaped stainless steel panels, it reflects changing light while also serving as an industrial chimney, drawing furnace heat up and out of the building.

Inside the cone, visitors can watch artists and technicians work with molten glass in the Hot Shop amphitheatre. The furnaces reach more than 2,000°F, and the work depends on teamwork, timing, and careful control of heat. Cameras and overhead screens show close-up views as the glass is shaped, turned, inflated, and refined, helping visitors follow the process from molten material to finished artwork.

The museum’s exhibitions present glass through sculpture, installation, design, and mixed-media work, while its programmes connect the medium with education and community. “Kids Design Glass” turns children’s drawings into glass pieces, and “Hot Shop Heroes” introduces glassblowing to wounded veterans. Nearby, the Bridge of Glass displays thousands of Chihuly glass elements through colour, light, and carefully arranged forms.