V&A Rotunda Chandelier
Dale Chihuly (born 1941) · 1999, enlarged 2001
Hanging in the dome of the main entrance, the first thing most visitors see is a writhing tower of blue and green glass, eight metres high and made from more than a thousand individually blown elements. It curls like seaweed, or an explosion of tentacles, catching the daylight from the rotunda windows and glowing green in the evening. The American glass artist Dale Chihuly created it for a temporary exhibition of his work at the museum in 1999, and it proved so popular that it was extended and made permanent in 2001 when the entrance hall was restored. It has been the museum's unofficial symbol ever since.
Chihuly's chandeliers are not lit from within; they are sculptures that use daylight, and this one was designed for the particular light of the Victorian rotunda. Each piece was blown by hand in his Seattle studio, where a team of glassblowers work to his drawings, then wired to a steel core in London over several days. Look for the range of forms: long twisting horns, bulbs, ribbons and cones, in a palette of turquoise, cobalt and yellow-green that shifts as you walk around it. The nineteenth century mosaic floor and terracotta arches below make an odd and delightful setting for something so unruly.
The museum has collected glass since its foundation, and the chandelier is a deliberate bridge between the Venetian goblets in the galleries upstairs and living craft. Chihuly, who lost the sight of one eye in a car accident in 1976 and no longer blows glass himself, has become the most famous glass artist in the world, with installations in gardens, casinos and museums on several continents. It remains on loan from the artist. Come back at dusk, when the entrance lamps turn it from a plant into a flame.
Did You Know? The chandelier was taken down and enlarged in 2001, gaining several hundred extra pieces, because the museum decided it should stay for good.
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