Otaru’s glassworks were founded to make two things: floats to hold up herring nets, and oil lamps for a town with no electricity. Plastic killed the first and the power grid killed the second. The workshops survived by making things nobody needed at all.
The first glassworks opened here around 1901. Herring nets needed thousands of blown glass floats, and a rapidly growing northern town needed kerosene lamps. Both were industrial products, made in volume, with no artistic pretension whatsoever.
Plastic floats arrived and were cheaper, lighter and unbreakable. Electricity arrived and lamps became decoration. Within a couple of decades both markets were gone, and the workshops had furnaces, glassblowers and no orders.
What they had left was skill. So they turned to ornament — vases, glasses, wind chimes, lampshades — and by accident became the thing the town is now known for.
A glass float is a functional object that became beautiful when it stopped being useful. That is Otaru’s entire twentieth century in one item.
The Otaru Music Box Museum occupies a 1912 brick trading office and holds tens of thousands of music boxes. There is no historic Otaru music-box industry — the business was established here in the 1980s, precisely because the town had beautiful empty buildings and a growing visitor trade.
The steam clock outside was built by a Canadian clockmaker in 1977 and given to Otaru by Vancouver, which has an almost identical one. It sounds every fifteen minutes and it is entirely un-Japanese, and the town is completely relaxed about that.
Buy from a workshop where you can see the furnace, not from a counter in a souvenir hall. The price difference is small and the object is different.
Small, heavy and packable is the rule for a ship: a sake cup, a wind chime, a paperweight. Large blown pieces are lovely and will not survive your suitcase.
Net floats and kerosene lamps, in volume
The workshops keep the furnaces
Skill without a market finds a new one
It sounds every fifteen minutes
In a 1912 trading office
Order coffee at Kitaichi Glass No.3 and sit under the oil lamps. Twenty minutes, and the best value on the street.
Because its glassworks lost both original products. They opened around 1901 making floats for herring nets and kerosene lamps for a town without electricity; plastic and the power grid destroyed both markets. The workshops kept their furnaces and skills and turned to ornamental glass, which became what the town is known for.
No. The music-box business was established in the 1980s in a 1912 brick trading office, because Otaru had beautiful empty buildings and a growing visitor trade. The steam clock outside was made by a Canadian clockmaker in 1977 and given by Vancouver. The town is entirely relaxed about both facts.
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