Stained Glass Is Trending In Interiors—All About Cathedral Core

It’s not the Holy Spirit that beckons Pasadena-based artist Scotlan Goldbeck into the occasional church—it’s the stained glass. A longtime admirer of the art form, she remembers first falling in love with a pigmented portal in Pequot Lakes, Minnesota, and still moseys into a chapel from time to time to savor the color-drenched glow. So when she enlisted Los Angeles architecture and design firm LAUN to renovate her 1906 Craftsman, Goldbeck brought her fascination home by adding a living room window festooned with amorphous blobs of blues, greens, and oranges. “There’s something spiritual about the different ways light shines through it,” Goldbeck says of the stained-glass window Debbie Bean crafted for the space. “It feels simultaneously ancient and present.”

Stained glass is no longer just a staple of churches and temples, but increasingly popular among homeowners and designers working on residential projects. “No [client] has turned it down so far,” says California-based designer Sarah Giesenhagen, creative director of the Bureau. “It is an awe-inducing, experiential win.” She estimates she’s implemented patterned, colorful glass in “almost every project” during recent years, while Rafael Calvo, owner of a San Gabriel, California-based glass art company called Tico Tech, Inc., seconds the uptick. He currently has 18 different windows on order, most of which are for domestic projects. Flip through AD’s glossy pages, and you’ll see the trend on full display, from a dotted skylight above the dining room of a midcentury home in California to Lucy Hale’s floral powder room aperture.

While stained glass does have a residential history—Frank Lloyd Wright in particular was known for incorporating art glass in projects—these colorful windows most often have religious connotations. According to the Stained Glass Association of America, the oldest example of multicolored glass used in a window is located in St. Paul’s Monastery in Jarrow, England, and dates roughly to 686 AD. As San Francisco–based design historian Alessandra Wood, PhD, explains, the medium became synonymous with Gothic architecture and, come the Middle Ages, religious scenes. Perhaps the most famous is the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, where 1,113 panels depict scenes spanning Genesis to the Resurrection of Christ.

“The stained glass existed as a way to tell and reinforce biblical stories in a pictorial manner,” Wood says. “For a mostly illiterate population, the imagery allowed churchgoers to connect the biblical stories they heard at church with brilliant imagery in the windows.”

In homes, stained glass tells a different story. Instead of recounting the divine, it chronicles a narrative of human touch. While some manufacturers rely on machines, Calvo says many still make these whimsical windows largely by hand, blowing glass in the shape of a large bottle, cutting it, and “filleting the glass as flat as possible.” According to Another Human’s Leah Ring, “In an increasingly digital world, people are interested in the handmade.” She recently added a colorful checkered window to a San Francisco bathroom, and adds that “There’s a comfort to an element that is still being done in, by and large, the same way it always has been.”

Goldbeck, the Pasadena-based artist and owner of the 1906 Craftsman, felt similarly when deciding to add stained glass to her home. “I think people are getting freaked-out about how artificial intelligence will affect art and design, and stained glass brings sacred light into that equation: An unexpected variable that invites introspection and softens the edges a bit.”

In addition to the handmade element, there’s also the aesthetic appeal. “The light filtering through its geometric forms casts shapes and colors that move within a space,” says Stacy Kelley, director of art at Unfold Projects, a regenerative design consultancy. “It creates an environment that brightens and fades over the course of the day.”

Awe-inspiring art glass can go anywhere: Bean, the stained-glass artist, crafted an interior window for the hallway of a two-storied artist flat by Unfold Projects, while Molly Purnell and Rachel Bullock of design studio LAUN add groovy glasswork everywhere from kitchens to entry gates. (The firm has added stained glass to seven of its projects—and counting—including Bullock’s own home.) “It’s art, so it should be placed somewhere you can stop, look at it, and take it all in,” Purnell advises.

For those looking to add stained glass to their homes, Australian designer Jase Sullivan says it’s crucial to consider how what’s outdoors may impact your color palette. “The sky and weather might affect your design,” he says. “Clear panels can take on the blue of the sky on a bright, sunny day, while some panels can appear grayer on a dull or overcast day.” Though stained glass befits a rainbow of hues, Sullivan gravitates toward “earthier, warmer colors that reflect beautifully on the space and skin.”

For patterns, think beyond pious imagery. Sullivan says geometric motifs, like the Mondrian-inspired arrangement he commissioned for a Sydney house, remove stained glass from its “more traditional associations” and “gives it a contemporary feel.”

Bullock suggests a simple grid as a fail-safe design. “It’s flexible, so you can take it in a lot of directions with varying textures and colors.” Or, for those craving whimsy, go ultra-personal: Calvo formed a fresco of two felines traipsing through tree branches to “immortalize” his clients’ cats.

Once installed, upkeep is uncomplicated. The most pressing: Avoid harsh chemicals like bleach and ammonia. Instead, use a gentler formula like Sprayway’s foaming cleaner, wipe with a soft microfiber cloth, and never apply a solution directly on the surface. “Avoid pushing, leaning, or placing pressure on the [piece],” Bean adds. “While the structure is strong, localized pressure can weaken solder joints or crack.”

Though Calvo says an eye-catching pane can add “an elegance to a window space that simple, modern architectural glass cannot achieve,” it is an investment. Bean sells small suncatchers for around $100, but says her commission-based works start around $2,500.

Is it a prudent acquisition? That’s for each to determine. But as Notre-Dame de Paris’s 1,100 square feet of vitrails, or the Technicolor touch Antoni Gaudí applied to Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia demonstrate, a gorgeous glow will endure.