GoggleWorks Center for the Arts
Founded by Gile J. Willson and his son Dr. Thomas A. Willson in 1871, Thomas A. Willson & Co. opened the first factory in the world to manufacture optical glass for lenses and reading glasses. Located at the corner of Washington and 2nd Streets in Reading, Pennsylvania, the company became known for its innovative strides in addressing the occupational hazards faced by factory workers and is credited with launching the safety protection industry. During the 1890s the company expanded the reach of the safety industry by addressing hearing, respiratory and head protection equipment. T
hrough the 1920s, they expanded their line of safety equipment to the protection of coal miners, military personnel, and aviation. By World War II, the company, renamed Willson Goggles, was helping the war effort by making aviator goggles and high altitude oxygen masks for pilots in the military. In 1936, the company again changed its name, to Willson Products, Inc., to reflect an expanding product line including fashionable sunglasses, as modeled by the contestants of the 1938 Miss America pageant, and swim goggles. In 1989, Dalloz bought Willson Products, and changed the company name to Dalloz Safety in 1997. Dalloz closed the plant in May 2002.
A prime example of adaptive reuse in architecture, the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts derives its name from the original structure from which it evolved, the former Willson Goggle Factory. While Reading once had a strong industrial base, the city has over the years sunken into a decline that left many buildings abandoned and the surrounding neighborhoods in an increasingly depressed state. Reading officials had long discussed plans for the revitalization of the city, and the renovation of the Willson Goggle Factory was viewed as a potential cornerstone upon which the revitalization of downtown Reading could be built. With generous support from the community and state government, a yearlong renovation transformed the abandoned goggle factory into the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts, opening to the public in September 2005.
The decision to locate the GoggleWorks in the urban core of Reading, where the needs of the community are greatest, has proven a catalyst for much needed change; many other vacant buildings are being renovated and new businesses are opening, creating new jobs and a safer community environment. The GoggleWorks now draws attention to an architecturally beautiful but neglected area of the city that is in serious need of economic revitalization. The GoggleWorks received a 2006 Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Award which acknowledged the integrity of the extensive renovation.
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