Chihuly Garden and Glass opened in 2012 as a permanent installation bringing Dale Chihuly's work home to the region that formed him. Chihuly was born in 1941 in Tacoma and grew up on Puget Sound. He studied at the University of Washington, traveled to Venice to apprentice with Murano glassblowers, and returned to transform a fine craft into major fine art.
A 1976 surfing accident cost him sight in one eye; a 1979 car crash damaged his shoulder — both injuries forced him to direct teams of glassblowers rather than work alone, a constraint that paradoxically expanded his ambition. His pieces are massive: chandeliers filling entire rooms, garden sculptures eight feet tall, glass sea creatures in colors that seem to glow from within. Eight gallery rooms here include a 100-foot Glasshouse with a suspended yellow-and-orange sculpture floating against a view of the Space Needle.
Chihuly proved that the Pacific Northwest could produce world-class art, and that glass — the most fragile of materials — could be made monumental.