[1][2] It is located on Penn Avenue in the Friendship neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

It has features works by Paul Joseph Stankard and classes taught by Dante Marioni, Davide Salvadore, and Cesare Toffolo.

[3] The origins of the Pittsburgh Glass Center date to 1991, when David Stephens, then visual-arts officer of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, approached glass artists Ron Desmett and Kathleen Mulcahy, then a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, about the idea of a center for studio glass.

[4] However, by 1999, the plans had changed and the center was re-oriented to Pittsburgh.

[6] By May 2011, the talks had failed, with the Pittsburgh Glass Center withdrawing from negotiations.