Opening in early 2026, the UC San Diego Glass Center will be the newest part of UCSD’s ArtsConnect initiative to create opportunities for artistic expression on campus. Located on the first floor of the Coalition building in the newly constructed Ridge Walk North Living and Learning Neighborhood, the Glass Center will serve as UC San Diego’s second Craft Center.
Annika Nelson, senior director of the craft and glass centers, will lead the new art center with Alexander Rosenberg as assistant director. In an email statement to The UCSD Guardian, Nelson expressed her desire to give community members more opportunities to explore glass art in a hands-on environment.
The Glass Center will be equipped with a “hot shop” for glass sculpting, a “cold shop” for etching and polishing, a flameworking studio, and a viewing gallery for demonstrations. Nelson says the public will be able to take advantage of these facilities through free drop-by evening programs; visitors will be able to watch various hot glass processes being performed by experienced artists and makers, ask questions, and learn about the work and career of visiting artists.
“We’ll also offer an extremely accessible glass experience program, where anyone from the community can try working with hot glass for the first time,” Nelson added. “There will be no prerequisites necessary for this program, and we encourage everyone to try it.”
Prices of the myriad courses at the Glass Center are yet to be released. Currently, glass-making courses the Craft Center offers range from $60 to $444.
The Glass Center hopes to improve the overall student experience by “exposing students and community members to instruction from some of the best regional and international artists and makers in the field,” Nelson said.
Glass art is not new to campus; UCSD’s original Craft Center — which included equipment for glassblowing, flameworking, stained glass, and neon glass art — stood in the Old Student Center for nearly 40 years before its closure in 2012. The new Craft Center at Sixth College, which opened 2021, includes only a small portion of these facilities. The center currently offers stained glass and fused glass courses.
When third-year student Dylan Schmidt took a course at the Craft Center last year, the only glass offerings were two stained glass making courses.
“I think they were pretty extensive for what we had at the time,” Schmidt said. “I don’t think [the Glass Center] is super necessary, frankly. I think that it’s cool, but the Craft Center already had very comprehensive classes despite its limited space.”
Nelson said the opening of this new Glass Center comes in response to requests for more glassmaking spaces.
“Since [the Craft Center in Sixth] opened, we have gotten many inquiries about bringing glass back to campus which inspired us to really make that happen,” she said. Nelson hopes that the Glass Center “will join Craft Center as one more bright star in the constellation of arts and culture spaces at UC San Diego, making campus a destination for art makers and art lovers in the region.”
Nelson and Rosenberg also hope that the Glass Center will promote community building and inclusivity on campus. The Glass Center has proposed a partnership with Crafting the Future, a Los Angeles-based organization that is “working to increase access to creative enrichment by connecting Artists of Color with opportunities that will help them thrive.”
It is unclear whether this or any future partnerships will decrease prices of Glass Center courses. Despite Craft Center courses’ notoriously high prices, Nelson said that she and Rosenberg are dedicated to making the new center widely accessible to UCSD students and the San Diego community.
“We’ll see how expensive those classes are, but I might check it out,” Schmidt said. “If not take classes, then just poke my head in, see what’s going on.”
