Peter Campbell (glass artist)

Peter Campbell is one half of collaborative enterprise Glassplay, as well as the Creative Director of CampbellBarnett. We chat with Peter about the mystical capacity of glass, architecture and channeling creativity.

Tell us a little about Glassplay?
Glassplay creates glass 'identities' and 'environments' for buildings of all kinds - architecturally sensitive and materially compelling, glass-based installations that are integrated into the built form, enhancing the liveability and legibility of the places they inhabit. 

It's a collaborative enterprise between myself and Rick Allen, Managing Director of Heritage Decorative Glass [and its commercial glazing counterpart, Moss Vale Glass]. When not wearing my Glassplay hat, I am Creative Director of design consultancy, CampbellBarnett, based in Sydney's eclectic Newtown; Rick and I have been working together on major glass projects since the late 80s. 

How did your journey begin?
After studying architecture at Sydney University in the late 60s, I spent many years as a professional musician, but after about 10 years began to feel the desire to reconnect with architecture in a meaningful way. I had discovered the work of the contemporary German glass artists, Ludwig Schaffrath and Johannes Schreiter [two amongst many] and, moved by their extraordinary ability to combine the graphic with the profound, started designing and building architectural glass windows myself. 

Why glass?
If you ask yourself why glass in the architectural context have the power to make people feel something that bricks or steel or gyprock can't, the answer has to lie somewhere between the primal human need to engage with light, and the unique, and almost mystical capacity of glass to capture, contain and transform it. 

Tell us about your recent exhibition project 'Melt' at 'Glass@FedSquare'?
Glass@FedSquarewas a breakthrough exhibition of architectural glass mounted in the huge volume of the Atrium at Fed Square in September this year. 

Glassplay's double-sided panel, entitled 'Melt', is an environmental statement which brings together the materiality and substance of the hand made, and the exciting possibilities of contemporary, digitally-based industrial processes. The images show one side in full and the other side in detail.

And what about the piece 'Alchemy' for the 'Glass 21' exhibition last year?
This is a free-standing three dimensional work (2000mm x 740mm x 690mm) which features two planes of 15mm toughened float glass connected by architectural patch fittings and anchored by a plasma cut mild steel base. Caught between the two planes is a laser cut screen of polished aluminium. 

Can you tell us about the other two projects shown?
The first was a large project for a small synagogue in Coogee. The project resolved a number of architectural, structural, aesthetic, spiritual and cultural issues for the Jewish community in Coogee and involved complex etching, sandblasting, carving, enamels and lustres, which forged a powerful spiritual narrative for the community.

The second grew from an evocative brand CampbellBarnett created for the Theo Notaras Multicultural Centre – the focus of multicultural activities in Australia's national capital. In a bold visual statement, the Centre's presence in the centre of the city is announced by six 8m glass blades overlooking Civic Square. They make a dynamic and colourful counterpoint to the formality of this important precinct, while a strong graphic overlay throughout the Centre differentiates the numerous tenancies. 

Are you producing your work locally?
It is all designed in Newtown - one of Sydney’s most notable and culturally diverse creative precincts; it's fabricated at the studio in the peaceful Southern Highland village, Moss Vale.  

We love diversity of your craft, what is the most enjoyable element of your role as Creative Director?
My working life has followed a path of entrepreneurial, creative endeavour and I have been a self-employed, strategic visual thinker working in arts-related fields for over 40 years; architect, architectural glass artist, actor, singer-songwriter, graphic designer, photographer and even, for some years, magician and ventriloquist.

The most enjoyable element of being Creative Director knowing how to draw on the understanding and diverse experiences of a creative life when developing projects, in order to give them substance, longevity, theatricality and a truly creative edge.

What have you learned?
I've learned that simply being 'creative' doesn't guarantee survival, that involves a real ability to structure work and life so that innate talents have a framework within which to develop.

Are there glass artists who are impressing you?
Many, here are four to look up:
• The Starn Brothers: Metropolitan Transportation Authority 'Arts for Transit' - South Ferry Station, 1 line, New York City Transit
• Kate Maestri: Balustrade for Foster & Partners at the Sage Music Centre in Gateshead, UK
• Johannes Schreiter: Decades of extraordinary work in leaded glass
• Janet Laurence: an extraordinary body of work encompassing glass in all its forms

How do you invigorate your imagination and keep motivated?
• Travel, it not only introduces endless new ideas, but gives you productive time to process your thinking.
• Reading - books, journals, websites, blogs. 
• Visiting new buildings, exhibitions, installations, studios.
• Looking, touching, feeling and asking a million questions!

How do you perceive the role of architectural art glass in contemporary architecture?
Computing, engineering, nanotechnology and the astonishing possibilities of the digital age have given us transparent materials and ‘dematerialising’ structures with extraordinary properties; it is a material in a constant state of flux and its role reflects that absolutely.

In the end, architects engage a designer when their concerns are on the surface; when they need to meeting these various visual objectives by buying design that, whilst requiring expert interpretive, semiotic, typographic or illustrative skills, is able to be rendered by contemporary industrial processes that are in themselves generic, computer-aided, repetitive and capable of reproduction quickly, and on mass. 

What comes first in your process: form, function or technology?
For me Form and Function are considered together because context is everything; achieving a great architectural outcome, whatever the scale, is a complex process of collaborative teamwork which encompasses concepting, briefing, integration and fabrication across multiple disciplines and industries.

Technology is purely a function of desired outcome and the actual process of creation might involve high-end contemporary digital or industrial processes, but it might also engage techniques that have not essentially changed in 1000 years. So the answer is that it depends.

Peter Campbell, Glassplay & CampbellBarnett