The Corning Museum of Glass Contemporary Art + Design Wing provides 100,000 square feet of new space, including 26,000 square feet of spacious, light-filled galleries for its collection of contemporary works in glass. The project also honors the history of glassmaking on the Corning campus with the renovation of the Steuben Glass factory building into a state-of-the-art glass workshop and demonstration theater. The black exterior of the restored Steuben Glass factory building juxtaposes the simple, white glass façade of the new gallery building. The design of the new gallery building is inspired by contemporary glass artwork’s display, largely independent of museum walls. Freed from the role of displaying mounted works, the gallery walls assume a serpentine form, gently guiding museum visitors to contemplate the larger works in glass on the museum floor. The new gallery building also features skylighting with a sophisticated light-filtering system that is integrated with the structural roof beams. The four-foot tall by three-and-a-half-inch thick pre-cast, concrete beams support the roof and direct dappled, natural light onto the glass art. When horizontally illuminated, glass artwork is put into silhouette, but when lit from above, the light honors the material and enhances the visitor’s understanding of the form itself. The more light the artwork absorbs, the more it reveals the depth and richness of the glass. The gallery building is a distilled container for glass and light; a place that serves the art.