Jablonec nad Nisou, a town in North Bohemia, is a place where jewellers and stonemasons used to come to learn their craft as early as in the 17th century. Not far from Jablonec you will find Jiřetín pod Bukovou, where Daniel Swarovski was born in 1862. He was the man who built a brand that has become an icon in the fashion world.
The Jablonec Museum has the largest collection of jewellery in the world and the largest glass exposition in the Czech Republic. However, you do not have to look for the largest jewel among the twelve million artefacts, as you can see it right from the street: the museum building is adorned with a glass extension, called the Crystal. And since the victorious global campaign of Jablonec jewellery happened thanks to good businessmen, they opened the Palace Plus jewellery centre in Jablonec, where you can buy jewellery, as well as traditional glass Christmas decorations or beads.
Shimmering beauty also comes from Preciosa, who manufacture chandeliers from cut crystal glass in Kamenický Šenov in the north of the country, near the German border, where once a year they organise an open-door day within IGS, the International Glass Symposium.
Crystal Valley and a story of artificial stones
You will not find it on the map, but it exists: Crystal Valley, a unique place where Czech glass-making traditions were born, stretches from the Jizera and Lusatian Mountains, through Jablonné in Podještědí to Desná and Turnov. The unique landscape is intertwined with the passion for the glass-making tradition and craft. Czech crystal was born in Crystal Valley more than 300 years ago, when local master glassmakers made the first cut stone in the world. It is used in the making of chandeliers and other light fixtures shining from Versailles to Dubai.
Daniel Swarovski, born in Jiřetín pod Bukovou, entered the glass-making world in the second half of the 19th century, and founded a crystal-glass manufacturing empire. Manual glass cutting was not enough for him, so he set off to get some experience at the fairs in Paris and Vienna, where the first ever electric motors were demonstrated. There, Daniel Swarovski met inventor František Křižík and built the first machine in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire for cutting small glass semi-finished products. Swarovski had to look for a better place, which he discovered hundreds of kilometres away, near Innsbruck, in Wattens, Tirol. He built his own hydroelectric power plant on the Inn River in 1895, rented a former fabric factory and built his own glass works several years later. The Swarovski company still exists today, and its headquarters can still be found in the same place. Besides jewellery that you can see at fashion shows by Versace, Channel and Luis Vuitton, the company also manufactures crystal chandeliers, spectacle and binoculars lenses, light fixtures and thousands of other products.
Shimmering beauty also comes from Preciosa, who manufacture chandeliers from cut crystal glass in Kamenický Šenov in the north of the country, near the German border, where once a year they organise an open-door day within IGS, the International Glass Symposium.
Crystal Valley and a story of artificial stones
You will not find it on the map, but it exists: Crystal Valley, a unique place where Czech glass-making traditions were born, stretches from the Jizera and Lusatian Mountains, through Jablonné in Podještědí to Desná and Turnov. The unique landscape is intertwined with the passion for the glass-making tradition and craft. Czech crystal was born in Crystal Valley more than 300 years ago, when local master glassmakers made the first cut stone in the world. It is used in the making of chandeliers and other light fixtures shining from Versailles to Dubai.
Daniel Swarovski, born in Jiřetín pod Bukovou, entered the glass-making world in the second half of the 19th century, and founded a crystal-glass manufacturing empire. Manual glass cutting was not enough for him, so he set off to get some experience at the fairs in Paris and Vienna, where the first ever electric motors were demonstrated. There, Daniel Swarovski met inventor František Křižík and built the first machine in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire for cutting small glass semi-finished products. Swarovski had to look for a better place, which he discovered hundreds of kilometres away, near Innsbruck, in Wattens, Tirol. He built his own hydroelectric power plant on the Inn River in 1895, rented a former fabric factory and built his own glass works several years later. The Swarovski company still exists today, and its headquarters can still be found in the same place. Besides jewellery that you can see at fashion shows by Versace, Channel and Luis Vuitton, the company also manufactures crystal chandeliers, spectacle and binoculars lenses, light fixtures and thousands of other products.
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