2026-07-26 Morning Scan

Generative Code Meets Medieval Glass

An algorithm decides the pattern. Ateliers Loire — the family workshop in Chartres that’s been restoring Notre-Dame — cuts and leads the glass by hand.

Jeff Davis wrote the generative code for Optimism, a 13-panel stained glass series produced through TRAME Paris. Bruno Loire, whose grandfather founded the workshop, called them “the first stained glass windows designed entirely by a computer but produced with a technique that dates to the Middle Ages.”

There’s something quietly radical about this. Davis visited the workshop, studied how stained glass is actually constructed, then wrote code that produces patterns a medieval glazier would recognize as valid. The output isn’t a digital print of something that looks like stained glass. It is stained glass — lead, glass, kiln — just with a computer as the designer.

The same hands working on Notre-Dame are making generative art. That’s not a disruption story. That’s craft absorbing new tools the way it always has, back through centuries.

Key Players

• Jeff Davis — Generative artist, Art Blocks strategic advisor
• Ateliers Loire — Family-run stained glass workshop in Chartres, France; currently restoring Notre-Dame
• TRAME Paris — Gallery founded by Ismail Tazi, pairing digital artists with traditional artisans
• Bruno Loire — Grandson of founder, leading the workshop into new territory

Sources

• LUXE Interiors + Design: Trame Paris + Jeff Davis Bring Stained-Glass To The Future
• TRAME Paris Exhibitions
• Art Blocks Beyond the Blocks Ep. 1

Farcaster Cast

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