What we do
Canberra Glassworks is a contemporary art gallery and working glass studio where visitors can see glass being made, hear the sounds of the workshop, and feel the warmth of the furnaces. Located in the heritage listed Kingston Powerhouse building, the site brings together a designer shop and art gallery with education spaces, factory-scale glassmaking equipment and internationally renowned artists and craftspeople under one roof.
Visitors are welcome to explore the gallery and shop, view the working studios from public platforms throughout the building, or take one of many short courses on offer. Throughout the building, you can see glowing furnaces and kilns alongside specialist equipment used by artists to shape molten glass. You may encounter artists working in the hot shop, cutting and polishing glass in the cold-working studio, bending neon tubes into shape, or installing a large commission in the Project Space. The building is active, physical, and sensory, with the making process openly visible as a living, evolving, and innovative practice.
Opening in 2007 as an initiative of the ACT Government, Canberra Glassworks exists to steward, develop, and advance glass as a vital contemporary art, craft, and design practice. As Australia’s most significant centre for glass, it brings together culture, tourism, making, and industry. Its role is not only to showcase finished artworks, but to care for the skills, people, and facilities that ensure glassmaking continues into the future.
Canberra Glassworks is a place where skills are shared across generations, from children to master craftspeople, and where glass is valued not just as an object, but as a living practice shaped by people, history, and care.
Kingston Power House
The Power House and its neighbouring building, the Fitters’ Workshop, were designed by architect John Smith Murdoch who also designed Old Parliament House and several other early Canberra buildings. Completed in 1915, the Kingston Power House was a coal fired electricity station built to generate electricity for the new city of Canberra. It is Canberra’s oldest permanent public building and has an ACT and National Heritage listing.
Its location created problems for Walter Burley Griffin as it interfered with his original plans for a grand axis within the city. Despite his objections, building began in 1912 on the present site. This positioning was ideal for generating electricity by producing steam with water from the nearby Molongolo River to drive the Power House turbines. The other key aspect of this positioning was the proximity to the southern railway line which delivered coal to a point below the ash hopper.
A hydroelectric power station became the main provider of power for Canberra in the late 1920s but the Kingston Power House continued to be used throughout the 1930s on an intermittent basis. During World War II it provided power to the naval transmission stations operating in the ACT. After the war the Power House still operated occasionally but it was decommissioned in 1957. After considerable consultation, the building was converted in 2007 into Canberra Glassworks, the only cultural centre that is wholly dedicated to contemporary glass art.
Keen to learn more about our history?
Join our free Heritage Tour running most Saturdays at 11am
