The Porcelain Workshop
1400
An artists’ workshop in a pure porcelain tradition — book yourself in for a week or a longer stay, right next door to Porsgrunds Porselænsfabrik.
● BOOKING OPEN FOR 2026The number is a temperature. It is where Porsgrund porcelain comes into being.
Since 1887, Porsgrunds Porselænsfabrik has fired its porcelain at 1400 degrees Celsius. It is this single high temperature that fuses body and glaze into one — not two layers that risk losing their grip on each other, but one continuous, dense body.
At 1400 °C, and in a deliberately oxygen-starved atmosphere, the porcelain takes on its characteristic whiteness and inner glow. This is the difference between hard-fired porcelain (“true porcelain”) and all other ceramics. Below 1300 degrees you have not arrived; above it the clay collapses.
We chose the number as our name because it says what we do without a single adjective. It is a salute, from one trade to another, to the people in the factory next door who have repeated this firing for 140 years. And it is a reminder to ourselves that materials have limits — that the craft is precise, not rhetorical.
A temporary workshop at the factory existed from 2015 to 2021 — among others, Torbjørn Kvasbø spent a year there in residence in 2016. The permanent workshop opened on 10 February 2022, with project funding from the Nordic Culture Fund. We call it Porselensverkstedet 1400 in applications, letters and formal contexts. In everyday speech, simply 1400.
A working stay at 1400
As a guest you have free access to the workshop, tools, glazes and firing. We offer the factory’s own clay in two varieties — plastic PP porcelain and PP casting slip — and cover clay, glaze and firing during your stay. The workshop has its own electric kilns (up to 1280 °C), as well as the factory’s large gas kiln at 1400 °C.
Stays are arranged in advance with a short project description. In return, each artist leaves one work for the workshop’s collection, and credits 1400 / Kunsthall Grenland when exhibiting and publishing. Book by the week in the calendar below, or apply for a longer stay through the porcelain residency.
Porselensveien 16, in the buildings of Porsgrunds Porselænsfabrik — entrance from the rear courtyard facing the river. A ten-minute walk from Porsgrunn station, 30 minutes by train from Torp airport.
The whole year at a glance. Updated manually by staff.
We have deliberately not built an automated booking system. Send us an email with your preferred week, the duration and a few words about what you will be working on — and we will reply as soon as we can.
