Walls Going Up on Toledo Glass Museum

That's because the walls of the new Glass Pavilion across from the Toledo Museum of Art are made of glass.The contractor building the museum had to build special equipment to help lift and move the huge sections of laminated glass. On Monday they installed the first of several hundred 8 by 13 foot glass panels. Some are straight and others are curved, and each piece weighs about a ton. That's why the special equipment was installed to move the panels along rails in the floor.There will be many curved walls inside and areas where artists will be working with glass.Since these huge furnaces throw off so much heat, they will recycle it to heat the building and to heat water. Many of the walls are see-through, so engineers had to find a place to put the functioning parts of the building. "We have a very limited space in which to fit all of the building systems, the electrical wiring, the heating, the plumbing, and all of that, so one of the other engineers early on in the project called this a swiss watch of a building," said Terry Beamsley, the local project coordinator.

Very early in the project, some neighbors complained that the contemporary design didn't fit the historical neighborhood. Designers have tried to be a good neighbor by hiding all of the garbage dumpsters and loading docks under ground.

So far, the project is expected to finish on-time. You'll be able to walk through the Glass Museum by the middle of next year.