
Purpose Built: Selections from the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery Permanent Collection
Opening September 18, 2026
The Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery was established as Canada’s first public gallery dedicated to the exhibition of contemporary ceramic, glass, and vitreous enamel art. Designed by Vancouver-based Patkau Architects following a national competition in 1986, this purpose-built facility was created specifically for the presentation of these media. Since opening on June 19, 1993, it has received a Governor General’s Award for Architecture and become an institution officially designated to preserve and protect nationally significant heritage objects.
Materials are laid bare in the construction of this remarkable building—concrete, steel, brick, glass, and wood—yet the experience of the space is anything but plain. The same alchemy is at work throughout the Permanent Collection, where humble materials are transformed through imagination, skilled hands, and heat into objects of beauty, function, and meaning. Fine art and craft coexist at the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery. Form and function, colour and design, technique and expression, tradition and innovation—these relationships shape every work, though no two artists strike the same balance.
Purpose Built is Generously Supported by

Image Gallery
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