World-largest fusing kiln
If Ajeto is all fire, sweat, and creative chaos, then Lasvit’s fusing facility feels like another world. The flames are hidden behind closed kilns, the atmosphere is calm, minimal, and precise. Instead of molten bubbles spun from a blowpipe, vast glass sheets are transformed into textured surfaces that carry both monumentality and refinement.
Glass fusing is an ancient technique that has found a contemporary revival. It elevates a plain sheet of flat glass into an elaborate masterpiece. The process begins on a perfectly smoothed base surface that becomes a kind of canvas. Once the layer is prepared, textures are shaped using both traditional and unorthodox tools. “Usually we might use spoons, brushes, rollers adorned with motifs, or bubble wrap – and even our own hands,” explains Šárka Grubauerová, who has been working in Lasvit’s glassworks more than two years.
When the surface is ready, the glass is placed into the world’s largest fusing kiln, a playground for textures and vertical applications. At high temperatures, the jumbo-sized glass melts, absorbing every imprint, every gesture, until the design is locked into its surface.
This is where iconic projects come to life, from the dramatic Splash sculpture to the monumental glass walls of the new Fairmont Hotel in Prague. Each work carries the memory of the creative act that shaped it, whether it was a pressed handprint, the trace of a branch, or a scatter of crushed shards that now gleam like frozen stardust.
“Every time the procedure unfolds, we gasp with anticipation as to the outcome,” says Šárka. “The Czech people have a particular penchant for playfulness,” she adds, a reminder that behind all the technical precision lies a spirit of discovery. It is a never-ending journey that transforms ordinary sheets of glass into something extraordinary, fused with a story only this material can tell.
Guardians and Pioneers
From molten breath to monumental sheets, glass carries the mark of human hands in every form. At Lasvit, those hands still guard the fire of the past while shaping surfaces that have never existed before. To stand before a finished piece – whether a fragile vessel blown in Ajeto or a wall of fused glass – is to see transformation made permanent. It is earth, fire, air, and water, but also endurance, playfulness, and imagination, fused into light.
