The Craftsman

The Craftsman by Richard Sennette embodied a lot of what I am passionate about in my professional work, and managed to also shed light on some new ideas for my degree project.


Though the book takes many tangents to reveal one fascinating story after another, ultimately Sennette was using examples from all over the world, at all different times in history to explain the nature behind the Craftsman. Sennette believes that the work of the hand can inform the work of the mind, and that one who utilizes this unique human traite of doing and thinking to produce some product, is a Craftsman. The concept of the craftsman spans all fields of study and craft. Sennette discribes being a craftsman as a way of living and an active/ physical lens in which one can see and interact with the world. For a craftsman there is a an inherant objective to be and make things better for the sake of doing it the best one can. It is in this mind set that innovation is born. Sennette takes it one step farther and argue that there should be a re-imagining of the Enlightenment, from the perpective of how craftsman made innovation and piece by piece changed the who outlook on the developing world.

He writes on a few occasions about the structures of various workshops, including that of Antonio Stradivari's violin workshop, and that even if one tries to reproduce the exact conditions and make of his violins they  never sounds as good as the orginaly by the craftsman. There are things learned in the hand and mind that can be expressed in the making of an object that we may not have the language (either verbal or visual) to express. And so in the apprentise based model a true craftsman may try to teach other by immersing them into the a whole way of life. In this experience a craftsman will learn to find the balance between autonomy and authority.

A craftsman will also learn to find challenges and resistance and turn those into areas of opportunity. Others less passionate will stop in the face of a challenge, but a craftsman will think and create a solution resulting in solution never explored before by others. Sennette uses an example of engineers drilling the first tunnels beneath the Thames, to explain that an obstacle can lead to innovation, and dos not have to stop forward progress. However, it is also the case that the solution must be smart instead of heavy handed. As chefs chop vegetables, they use minimum force, and the right tool to do the job right.

An interesting point that Sennette makes about craftsman, which I didn't expect to come up in this book is about the importance of play. He says that in play a craftsman can find the  true and ernest interaction with their medium, whether it be coding for linux or sculpting with clay.

He goes on explaining what a craftsman is and what traits one has, and how this way of working is something we all ought to strive for.

I do strive for this in my Design Build business, and I hope to create a design for my Innovation center/ Library of Conversation/ Workshop that would help to facilitate the development of craftsman, and then have them collaborate. Sounds pretty sweet to me.