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The Craftsman explores the relation between the hand and the head. Richard Sennett argues that working with physical things stimulates people to think. Craftsmanship, says Sennett, names the basic human impulse to do a job well for its own sake, and good craftsmanship involves developing skills and focusing on the work rather than ourselves. The computer programmer, the doctor, the artist, and even the parent and citizen all engage in a craftsman's work. In this thought-provoking book, Sennett explores the work of craftsmen past and present, identifies deep connections between material consciousness and ethical values, and challenges received ideas about what constitutes good work in today's world. The Craftsman engages the many dimensions of skill-from the technical demands to the obsessive energy required to do good work. Craftsmanship leads Sennett across time and space, from ancient Roman brickmakers to Renaissance goldsmiths to the printing presses of Enlightenment Paris and the factories of industrial London; in the modern world he explores what experiences of good work are shared by computer programmers, nurses and doctors, musicians, glassblowers, and cooks. Unique in the scope of his thinking, Sennett expands previous notions of crafts and craftsmen and apprises us of the surprising extent to which we can learn about ourselves through the labor of making physical things.… (more)
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The first part of Sennett's book is the one where its main value lies. It is both a history of the craftsman and a discussion of the importance of tacit knowledge sharing in the workshop. The shared community, organized in guilds, is one of the important elements modern successor jobs lack. This pushes the homo faber back towards the animal laborans, Countries with a craft culture such as Jaoan and Germany treat their skilled workers much better than countries without a craft culture (UK, US) with their emphasis on unskilled jobs.
Unfortunately, Sennett then removes himself from the real discussion in the next two parts, preferring to elaborate on the theme of the craftsman as artist. This is valid only for a minority of craftsmen. While the price for most services performed by craftsmen approaches the level one pays for artwork, what is wanted and what is delivered mostly isn't art but a competent, adequate job, Redefining the craftsman as an artist is certainly a solution to the problem, but the limited number of artists required will never be adequate to replace the legion of redundant craftsmen. On the other hand, there is a quaint picture book about the numerous professions that never made it into the 20th century. Is it just that the hand-based crafts are disappearing, replaced by head-based/symbolic crafts such as systems engineers and project managers?
Most architects are not even close to the mastery of an Adolf Loos. They design and build (cheap) offices and houses. Prefab elements and configuration kits challenge even those highly skilled crafts. Sennett contrasts the houses built by pro Loos and the amateur Wittgenstein, a difference in skill and constraints. I took the occasion to visit the Wittgenstein House here in Vienna, now occupied by the Bulgarian cultural embassy. Its main flaw is its failure to respect a Palladian hierarchy of room sizes. The door handles set at around 1,70 m aren't helpful either. In a deeper sense, it shows that architecture is a social craft. Deep-pocketed autodidacts such as Thomas Jefferson and Ludwig Wittgenstein may remodel their houses to eliminate their mistakes. Learning a craft means absorbing the lessons of the successes and mistakes of countless forebears, the essence of a craft, a knowledge all too quickly lost.
The book unfortunately doesn't answer the question about the future of the craftsman. The good first part is marred by the cop-out of the next two parts. Craft is more than delivering quality work.
Interesting but I think he misses some points.