When the National Glass Centre in Sunderland was opened by Prince Charles in October 1998, it was hoped that the £17m glass and steel building would help revitalise the city’s waterfront and serve as an enduring monument to its industrial heritage.
It received £6.9m of national lottery funding and houses installation spaces and resident glass-makers. It was cited as a “world-class cultural asset” in Sunderland’s 2021 UK City of Culture bid, and was the venue of a government cabinet meeting on the first day of Brexit. The centre also houses the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art.
Fast forward 25 years and the riverside centre is set to be shut down and mothballed after an external report, seen by the Observer, identified long-term structural defects, including roof leaks, corrosion and broken glazing. The study by GSSArchitecture warned that work was required to prevent further corrosion and “partial collapse” of rusted steelwork.
Sunderland University, which owns the building, announced in January that it wanted to move it, as it considered fixing the defects unaffordable. But it now faces a campaign to save the centre, and calls for an inquiry.
Julia Potts, a Liberal Democrat councillor on the city council, said: “People across Sunderland cannot believe that there are tens of millions of pounds of structural problems in a building so new.”
Niall Hodson, leader of the Lib Dem group on the council, said: “This is an iconic and significant asset which has been supported by public money, and it’s terrible to be losing it.”
Campaigners warn that the centre’s closure would risk the “death of blown glass in the north-east”.
Jo Howell, a photographic artist and a coordinator of a newly launched campaign to save the centre, said: “This is an architectural gem and one of the few cultural venues in Sunderland with national prestige.”
Phil Vickery, 44, Howell’s partner and an award-winning glass artist who hires furnaces at the centre for glass-blowing, said: “There aren’t many places in the country you can hire to make glass, so it would make my business incredibly hard to continue with if it closed.”
In 1994, the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation held an open competition for the design of the new glass centre. The winning design by Gollifer Associates Architects, now Gollifer Langston Architects, was awarded millennium product status by the Design Council in recognition of its creativity and innovative environmental approach.
It included a working factory, workshops for designer glass production, gallery space and a showpiece 3,250sq m glass roof that the public could walk on. Sunderland University took over the ownership and management of the centre in 2010.
The city’s glass-making heritage dates back to the seventh century, when Benedict Biscop hired craftsmen from Gaul to create stained glass for the windows of St Peter’s church and monastery at Monkwearmouth, on the north side of the River Wear near to the centre. Glass-making boomed in the 18th century thanks to an abundance of cheap coal and quality imported sand.
Shortly after the centre opened, cracks had to be repaired on the building on a small number of glass roof panels. The centre has attracted more than 230,000 visitors a year, but the roof was closed to the public five years ago because of fears of structural problems.
When he was prime minister, Boris Johnson chaired a cabinet meeting at the National Glass Centre on 31 January 2020 to mark the UK leaving the EU. It has also been used as a venue for TV broadcasts.
GSSArchitecture considered various refurbishment options in its study of the building’s structure. It did not recommend the lowest cost option of more than doubling the maintenance budget and incurring one-off capital costs of £2.4m because of the future risk of structural failure. A second option was roof replacement at a cost £45m, and a third was a rebuild with a vertical extension at a cost of £72.3m.
Sunderland University has recently announced a £250m capital development programme but considers the repair costs for the centre were too high. A decision to relocate the centre was taken at a board of governors meeting in December.
The university says the glass centre now needs to be “reimagined” in a new location, but without publishing any budget for the move. It hopes to move to a new location within three years, during which time the riverside centre will remain open and operate as usual.
The university said: “The search for a new home, or homes, is an opportunity for the centre’s work to reach new audiences in a financially secure and sustainable manner. We remain in positive discussions with key partners, including Sunderland city council, about future site options.”
It said no decision had been made about the future of the current building, but added: “We continue to address ongoing maintenance issues currently affecting the building and keep the centre operating in a safe manner.”
Arts Council England, which supports the centre through funding of the arts organisation Sunderland Culture, said: “We can fully appreciate the challenges that the University of Sunderland is facing. It is very reassuring that the university and its partners are committed to exploring new city-centre locations for the organisations.”
