Tomasz Urbanowicz

Tomasz Urbanowicz (born 1959 in Wroclaw, Poland) is an architect and a designer of artistic architectural glass. He finished studies at the architecture department of the Wroclaw University of Technology (1978–85). He took glass-window studies at the Fine Arts Academy of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland (1982–85) and worked as an assistant in the Painting and Sculpture Establishment at the Architecture Department of Wroclaw Institute. In 1987, together with his wife, architect Beata Urbanowicz, he established his own studio, Archiglass.^[1]^[2]^[3]

His glassworks were featured in 'Colours of Architecture' by Andrew Moor (London, 2006)^[4] and in 'Contemporary Kiln-formed Glass' by Keith Cummings (2009). Urbanowicz creates glass compositions mostly for prestigious public utility buildings and company premises, but also to private residences. Urbanowicz's artworks took part in World Fairs EXPO three times representing Poland; at EXPO 2000 in Hanover, Germany; EXPO 2005 in Aichi, Japan,^[5] where his glass composition ‘the Soul of the Grand Piano’ was the main artefact in the Polish Pavilion,^[6] and at EXPO 2008 in Saragossa, Spain,^[7] where the his composition ‘Catching the Wind into Sails’ was part of the national presentation.

His glass creations can be found all around Poland, like at the University of Silesia in Katowice, at the University of Technology in Wroclaw and in the Highest Court building in Warsaw, but also in many places around the world: the glass sphere ‘The United Earth’ is a central artistic element on European Parliament building agora in Strasbourg, France; the glass rainbow ‘Larc en ciel’ decorates G. Brassens College in Paris, France; green glass castings can be found in the lobby of the Holsten Brewery in Hamburg, Germany; and the composition ‘Blue Sunset in the Ocean’ cruises around the world on the world's biggest liner Queen Mary 2. One of the most recent Tomasz Urbanowicz's creations is large artistic glass installation in foyer of the newly build Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic building in Bialystok, Poland.^[8]^[9]

'850 °C. The glass of Tomasz Urbanowicz' is an independent, low-budget documentary produced by World in a Coconut Shell studio that premiered on February 21, 2013 in the New Horizons Cinema in Wroclaw, one of the biggest auteur movie theatres in Europe.^[10]^[11] The extraordinary soundtrack has been composed by young local artists. The film is trying to grasp Tomasz Urbanowicz’s vision of the essence of not only his own creativity, but creativity and art in general.

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