Two unique bus tours of important Chicago stained glass will take place on Friday, July 8, 2016. The tours are co-sponsored by the American Glass Guild and the Stained Glass School of the Stained Glass Association of America, bringing together national and international experts in the field of stained glass for conferences in the Chicago area the same week, along with local studio Solstice Stained Glass.

One tour will focus on glass designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and other artists of that same historical period. The other tour surveys some of the unique work of artist Edgar Miller. Both tours will originate at Second Presbyterian Church, which boasts an Arts & Crafts interior, nine Tiffany windows and others by Millet and McCully & Miles.

The Tiffany and the Gilded Age Tour, led by Chicago stained glass experts Rolf Achilles and Neal Vogel, will also visit the Macy’s Pedway and Chicago Cultural Center, home of the world’s largest Tiffany dome ceiling and 22 stained glass windows in an exhibit of Victorian non-religious glass; the Richard H. Driehaus Museum to see its dome of Kokomo glass; the Cathedral of St. James, which has windows made from more than 700,000 pieces of antique glass; the Chicago Sinai synagogue featuring windows of Brian Clarke; Mother Cabrini Chapel; and Old St. Patrick’s church, one of the few buildings to survive the fire of 1871 and the oldest public building in Chicago.

Planned stops on the Edgar Miller Tour, led by tour guides Larry Zgoda and Zac Bleicher, include the OakRidge Mausoleum in Hillside; Edgar Miller’s home at the Glasner Studio; the Carl Street Studios, a series of unique art studio apartments that open out to closed communal spaces with gardens, fountains, koi and art; the ballroom of the Hotel Intercontinental, where Miller designed the Gothic-inspired stained glass windows King Arthur Foyer and Court; and the lobbies of 120 N. State and the Century Tower, both of which have Miller stained glass installations.

Tours will begin at approximately 10 a.m. and finish by 3 p.m. The cost of each tour is $80 and includes a bag lunch. For more information, contact tour coordinator Bill Bein at 773-510-9021 or bill.bein@sbcglobal.net.

Register at agg2015.formstack.com/forms/chicagostainedglasstours2016.

The Stained Glass School, a 501(c)(3) organization, is affiliated with the Stained Glass Association of America (501C-6). The American Glass Guild is a 501(c)(3) organization.