GREETINGS FROM TOYAMA, 30 YEARS OF CZECH GLASS IN JAPAN, MUSEUM PORTHEIMKA Czech glass designers have been teaching as associate professors at TIGA – the Toyama City Institute of Glass Art, an internationally renowned educational institution in Japan, for thirty years. Toyama (富山市 in Japanese), the capital of the eponymous prefecture, lies on the west coast of the Japanese island of Honshu. High mountains rising right behind the metropolis are well-known to the Czechs as they separate the Toyama Prefecture from the neighbouring prefecture of Nagano, where their ice hockey team won the Winter Olympics in 1998. In the 1980s, Toyama officials sought to promote, differentiate, and highlight their city to others. In the end, they chose to revive the then long-forgotten local production of pharmaceutical glass. Rather than returning to its factory production, they turned their attention to visually attractive art glass instead; a decision that was probably fuelled by the positive response received by the international glass competition repeatedly held in the nearby city of Kanazawa. The decision to build the modern prestige of the city of Toyama upon glass proved to be wise and far-sighted. FOTO© PETRSALEK.COM ARTMAGAZIN.EU