43｜History of Glass: Japanese Glass Manufacturers, Handmade Glass Factories 13

Happy New Year, everyone. I apologize for the long gap since my last update on January 15th.

From January 20th to February 1st, I attended the Maison&Objet exhibition in Paris, France, and the Edo Tokyo Kirari Project event held concurrently. After enjoying a delicious lunch in Bordeaux, I took the TGV to San Sebastian, Spain, where I spent a day indulging in food and wine. Then, I traveled to Frankfurt via Madrid for business meetings at Ambiente, one of the world's largest exhibitions. After that, I crossed the Atlantic to New York to meet with clients and then returned home. I enjoyed my first world tour of the year🎵

I visited Maison&Objet in Paris and Ambiente in Frankfurt for the first time in four years. The vast grounds, many times larger than Big Sight, were bustling with exhibitors and buyers from all over the world.

However, I felt that both exhibitors and visitors had decreased. This is just my personal impression. Before COVID, trains were packed, the entrance gates were overflowing with people, and the aisles and booths were quite crowded, but that vibrancy is gone. Is it due to various factors such as train strikes, the Chinese economy, Gaza, and Ukraine? Also, the huge booths of world-renowned brands like Wedgwood, Riedel, and ARC have completely disappeared; they are apparently not even exhibiting anymore! The rise and fall of global manufacturers are rapid and intense, and the changes in just a few years are astonishing.

What I felt had grown significantly was that manufacturers from China, ASEAN, and Eastern Europe, who used to be subcontractors, were now launching their own brands and exhibiting splendidly. Many Japanese manufacturers also exhibited and were very active. Looking at it objectively, the current weak yen, from an overseas perspective, is like a daily 30% off bargain sale.

Now, let's return to the story of the Japanese glass manufacturer, Soga Glass.

Press molding is ideal for manufacturing thick, heavy, and large glass items such as ashtrays, vases, small bowls, and large plates. High-temperature molten glass is placed between a concave and convex mold and then molded under high pressure. While cups and wine glasses are made by blowing glass like inflating a balloon, press molding has a more mechanical image and requires larger equipment. Soga Glass specialized and grew in this press molding technique.

However, due to soaring fuel prices and the mass production of similar items in China using state-of-the-art equipment, the company was quickly phased out and downsized. Part of its factory site was affected by road expansion work, and combined with internal management issues, production gradually declined from around 2010. Within a few years, both employees and company operations had ceased without notice.