Musée du verre

Glass museum housed in the former Verrerie Royale de Carmaux; it is closed for works, with reopening targeted for 2029.

Temporarily closed

Musée du verreTemporarily closed

Temporarily closed (expected until 2029). The museum has been closed to the public for several years due to restructuring works. An off-site programme and the Biennale des Verriers continue.

About the museum

The Domaine de la Verrerie has existed for more than 250 years. In 1754 it covered 400 hectares with numerous mine shafts, and Gabriel de Solages obtained the king's permission there to build a glassworks: the first Verrerie Royale in the South-West to be fired with coal, operating until 1856. The Verrerie Sainte-Clotilde took over near the railway line from 1862 to 1931.

The Château des Solages burned down in 1895. Buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries remain, including the ground floor of the former Verrerie Royale, the orangery fitted out above it in the 1860s, an outbuilding of the château, a guardhouse, a chapel and a 17-hectare park.

The former glassworks became a museum in the 1980s. For more than thirty years, it presented old objects and contemporary works and animated the estate with the Biennale des Verriers and a glassblowing workshop set up in 2001 in the chapel. The buildings now require major works. The museum is closed to the public, and the Communauté de communes Carmausin-Ségala has reworked the route to bring the estate back to life by 2029.