Functional glasses are glasses that exhibit special optic or structural properties nonexistent in traditional glass blowing glass (soda-lime glass). They date from the 1950s and have been a focus of active research ever since, with countless technological applications. Still, there are only few instances where these glasses would have been used in the context of art or functional glassware: there is no glass art taking advantage of glass changing color depending on the amount of light it is exposed to; nor are there art pieces with electrically or magnetically active glass . This observation set my work in motion.

In my thesis, I try to find reasons for these glasses not being used. It cannot be explained by just technical difficulties, as the production process of many a functional glass is very close to that of some color glasses used widely in art. There are various factors that could play a role: a bad communication between glass science and glass art; higher working temperatures or possibly poor glassblowing properties of functional glasses; or perhaps a combination of all these. I go through the basic principles of different functional glasses and some surface manipulation techniques historically used in glass art. I assess the possible use of the functional glasses studied for the wider field of glass art.

In order to assess the glassblowing properties of these glasses I blow two main types of functional glasses: glasses that crystallize easily and glasses that already contain a crystalline phase before blowing. As a representative of the former, I use bioactive glasses that are glasses that mineralize into bone mineral when exposed to human body fluids; as an example of the latter, I blow magnetic glass, the development process of which is also part of the thesis. The studies described here are very new: a similar magnetic glass suitable for glassblowing has not been reported before; there are no literature remarks on glassblowing on functional glasses. This is very surprising, as even the simple blowing studies reveal interesting properties on these materials.

In the blowing of functional glasses a lot of different practical challenges are faced. Still, the main result is that the glasses studied remain blowable regardless of partial crystallization while maintaining their functionality. Based on these, there are no apparent reasons for functional glasses not being suitable for glassblowing and glass art in the future.