The Chihuly chandelier

I was in Toronto in the late 1990's scouting the Royal Ontario Museum as a venue for the Grand Design exhibition, when I got a call from Gail Lord, a museum consultant whom I had known for some time, inviting me to visit their office. Along I went, and it soon became clear what was being sought. The new Museum of Glass was being developed at that time, with Gail's involvement, and they were looking to send some of the museum's collection, mainly works by Dale Chihuly, on tour. Would the V&A be interested? I looked through the slides and was bowled over by the sheer bravura of Chihuly's work in glass. It was unlike anything I had seen before - using centuries-old techniques but creating installations and pieces that were completely, dramatically modern.

As it happened, the timing for an exhibition would not fit with our schedule, so that went nowhere. I mentioned Chihuly to the glass curators and was intrigued to find that the V&A actually had a couple of smallish pieces by him. There didn't seem much interest in acquiring anything else. However, not long afterwards, the V&A was having one of its periodic debates with itself about how it could be seen as a thoroughly modern institution, not an old-fashioned attic. And as usual the conversation turned on branding, or at least promotion. I said at a meeting that a large part of the perception of the V&A as old-fashioned derived from first impressions - the immediate effect when a visitor walked in through the front door. It just was old-fashioned, in almost every respect. And writing a memo to director Alan Borg later, I said that a big installation piece by Dale Chihuly in the V&A's main entrance hall could very easily transform that perception and link the old to the present day.

Nothing appeared to happen, I heard nothing back, but then the word started going round that the V&A was going to commission a chandelier piece from Dale Chihuly for its main entrance. People from Chihuly Studio visited. Sketches appeared. A huge team arrived to assemble the piece on site from vast numbers of boxes of glass. The huge chandelier was created. Dale himself arrived, and although the work was done, plainly wasn't very pleased with it. It turned out that (rightly) he felt it was still too small for the space. So, months later the team came back again and almost doubled the size of the chandelier, and it was finally done in 2001.

Dale himself was/is a marvellous one-off. Built a bit like the late Eduardo Paolozzi, a patch over an eye lost in a glass-blowing accident, shoes covered with splatters of paint and hair going every which way, he was a benevolent tyrant, running his studio much as I suppose a Renaissance master's studio must have been run. His team were superb, dedicated, imaginative, charming.

I still have a couple of catalogues given to me by Dale, but so far I still haven't ever been able to afford one of his pieces! So the books will have to do. I'm happy to have played a part in getting a big piece of his into the V&A.