Playful Broadmead: Glass and Colour Works
Part of the final theme of the Love Bristol, Love Broadmead campaign, this vast new window artwork brings dazzling colour and transmitted light to Broadmead
Date
August 2026 - present
Anna Farthing
Interim Head of Place (Maternity Cover)
The artwork, created by architectural glass artist Edward Rhys Jones and produced by street art specialists Upfest, is rooted in the site’s heritage, in particular the John Hall & Sons Glass & Colour Works, which occupied a large site in Broadmead from 1788 until being destroyed by the Blitz in 1940.
John Hall was a glazier and glass merchant. For over 150 years, stained-glass windows were produced at the site for installation all around the country. The new artwork takes this historical context as inspiration to reinterpret an existing window over the Broadmead entrance to The Galleries shopping centre.
Known for working with the built environment on various commissions, Edward Rhys Jones has used transparent magenta, cyan and yellow film on top of existing glazing. Nearby stone spheres on the pedestrianised area have also been repainted with the same pops of colour, linking the John Hall & Sons site to the new artwork.
The glazing will bring a sense of lightness to the everyday experience of visitors to an area that has gained a reputation for antisocial behaviour in recent times. In response to sunlight, the window beams dancing patterns across surrounding surfaces, and can be appreciated from both indoors and outside. The piece also promotes curiosity, imagination, playfulness and a family-friendly atmosphere in Broadmead.
‘Glass and Colour Works’ is a legacy piece for Bristol BID’s Love Bristol, Love Broadmead campaign and will remain until the redevelopment of The Galleries is complete.
The commission has been launched alongside the Broadmead Urban Fairy Doors project, encouraging everyone to look closely above and below the shop fronts to discover imaginative miniature portals, inhabited by tiny characters whose personalities can be identified by the clues in their door designs.
Glass and Colour Works officially launched on Playday 2026 – Wednesday 5 August.