A Rudimentary Historical Context

The fluidity of the role of technology over time necessitates that my IP investigate the historical context of mechanized production and its juxtaposition with craftsmanship. With an eye towards this end, I re-read the ID history articles assigned in my Integrative Product Development course. I found three of particular interest, with the most recent being dated 1923. Quite obviously this needs to be extended to include more contemporary authorities-

John Ruskin, The Nature of Gothic (1853)

Proposed 3 Rules:

1. Never encourage the manufacture of any article not absolutely necessary, in the production of which Invention has no share.

2. Never demand an exact finish for its own sake, but only for some practical or noble end.

3. Never encourage imitation or copying of any kind, except for the sake of preserving record of great works.

" The demand of perfection is always a sign of misunderstanding of the ends of art."

"Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change."

"... the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgement Mercy."

Ruskin largely argued that the value of an artifact lied in it's imperfections, not in its polished finish. He later defined his use of "invention" as the form, color, or engraving of exquisite items. These qualities were proof of the human expression that gave these items value, while imperfect, they spoke volumes in comparison to the stagnate manufactured item.

Most interesting for me is Ruskin's focus on human expression, via mistakes, rather than simply stating a supremacy of the human hand over technology. Instead he advocates that the empty object is as worthless as the empty man producing it, for he was "only a machine before, an animated tool"

Frank Lloyd Wright, The Art and Craft of the Machine (1901)

"The Machine is, in fact, the metamorphosis of ancient art and craft; that we are at last face to face with the machine- the modern Sphinx- whose riddle the artist must solve if he would that art live-"

"genius must progressively dominate the work of the contrivance it has created."

"The Machine is Intellect mastering the drudgery of earth.... its function ultimately to emancipate human expression!"

"It will clothe Necessity with the living flesh of virile imagination"

Wright's argument is in many ways the antithesis of Ruskin's; embrace technology and move beyond the drudgery of physical manufacture. The machine was the great democratizer, freeing craftsmen to move beyond the realm of mere utility. Wright also warned that the machine was capable of doing great good, but only in the right hands willing to use the technology to create a more beautiful world over a selfish desire to increase one's own leisure or wealth. In one sense, Wright is speaking to the change in making art to creating it, democratizing skilled craftspeople to the role of artist/designer.

Walter Gropius, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus (1923)

"The artist was a man 'remote from the world', at once too unpractical and too unfamiliar with technical requirements to be able to assimilate his conceptions of form to the processes of manufacture"

Gropius was a harsh critic of the art "academy" where mechanical skills of drawing or painting were taught under the pretense of creating professions. he argued at the time that such professions were imposters of the arts, no better than machines because while they possessed the necessary skills, they lacked a holistic understanding of the changing world around them. Quite the opposite of Wright, these individuals were too engrossed by the tools of expression to utilize technology's economy and efficiency: stalled, marveling at their own ideology-