Refract 2023 – Through the Looking Glass Tour
Sat, Oct 14, 2023 from 10am - 12pm
SAF is thrilled to partner with Refract, Seattle's premier glass festival, for their 5th Anniversary! Refract 2023 is celebrating 60 Pacific Northwest glass artists over the course of more than 80 events during its four-day festival this fall.
To highlight Seattle's unique relationship with glass, SAF is offering our popular Through the Looking Glass tour. Guests will discover how glass is used from the past to the present as Seattle has grown in the last few decades. While modern buildings are often fully wrapped entirely in glass, Seattle’s older buildings have smaller scaled windows as you recede into the history of building design. Learn how architects and developers went from using glass as an opening nestled into a stone wall to today’s modern buildings sheathed in glass. How does one build in such a way that we can control both temperature and light during different times of the day and seasons of the year?
PNW bonus tip! At the end of the walking tour, guests learn how young salmon find their way to the ocean through the innovative use of glass in urban architecture.
Learn more about Refract 2023 here.
This tour begins at the Amazon Spheres at 6th and Lenora (north side of spheres by dog run)
Photo by Evan Chakroff
