Yet for all its innovation, the soul of Garibaldi remains unchanged. On a clear day, Eric Pfeiffer—now retired but still a frequent visitor—likes to stand in the annealing bay as a kiln finishes its cycle. He places a palm against the warm steel door. Inside, a new piece of glass—half liquid, half solid—is becoming something that never existed before. Like the mountain outside, it will outlast its makers.
As one tour guest wrote in the logbook: “I came thinking glass was a surface. I left knowing glass is a depth.” In 2023, Garibaldi Glass announced a partnership with a university materials lab to develop photovoltaic kiln-formed glass —solar cells embedded between fused glass layers without visible wiring. Prototypes are already lighting the studio’s own sign. The company has also begun training Indigenous apprentices from the Squamish Nation, incorporating traditional Coast Salish formline designs into limited-edition slumped panels, with proceeds supporting language revitalization. garibaldi glass
What started as a one-man operation in a converted barn—fusing small art panels for local galleries—quickly gained a reputation for technical daring. By the mid-1980s, Pfeiffer had built his first custom kiln capable of slumping and fusing large-format architectural sheets. Garibaldi Glass was born, named as a permanent homage to the volcanic peak that watched over every firing. Unlike standard float glass or mass-produced stained glass, Garibaldi’s signature lies in kiln-forming —a process that blurs the line between craft and industrial design. Here, glass is not cut and assembled so much as sculpted with heat. Yet for all its innovation, the soul of
The company’s 4,000-square-foot studio (now expanded to a 20,000-square-foot facility in Squamish’s Oceanfront Industrial Park) houses massive programmable kilns, some large enough to accommodate sheets over 10 feet long. Each piece of Garibaldi glass begins as select raw glass—often low-iron “water-clear” or specialized colored fusible glass from Germany, Italy, and Japan. Inside, a new piece of glass—half liquid, half