Czech Hand-Made Glass Production Added to UNESCO

Czechia is celebrating another amazing achievement! Today (December 6 2023), the international committee decided that handmade glass production is also worthy of UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

It was France that instigated the inclusion of handmade glass production on the UNESCO list; alongside the Czech Republic, the initiative was also supported by Germany, Hungary, Finland and Spain. Czechia succeeded in having UNESCO list traditional blown-glass beaded Christmas decorations from the Rautis workshop in Poniklá in the Krkonoše Mountains in 2020. The scope is far wider now -  it covers literally the whole of glass production. From the viewpoint of UNESCO, Czechia is exceptional: in other countries, it is just one of the techniques used to make glass by hand that is listed, whereas in Czechia all those techniques are represented to this day; glass production in this country spans every step, from the very beginning through to the end consumer.

Countless times the Czechs have proven (and keep on proving!) that they have the magic touch with glass. Lasvit, for instance, has been making the trophies for the winners of the Tour de France bike race for more than ten years now. Then there’s the Rückl glassworks, which crafts the trophies awarded to champions of the Miami Open tennis tournament. The whole world’s attention is captured by two fifty-metre crystal dragons crafted by Lasvit on the island of Saipan in the Pacific Ocean. They boast two records – the biggest lighting installation and the biggest jewel in the world! If that’s not enough, glassmakers from the Železný Brod region produced the largest piece of fused glass in the world – a seven-ton sarcophagus for Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.

Source: https://www.visitczechia.com/en-us/news/2023/12/n-czech-glass-in-unesco