I read Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B. Crawford only a few months ago and it really struck a nerve. Today I picked it back up and flipped to a random page, under the chapter Agency vs Autonomy I re-read this paragraph.
"Thinking about manual Engagement seems to require nothing less than that we consider what a human being is. That is, we are led to consider how the specifically human manner is being lit up, as it were, by man's interaction with his world through his hands. For this a new sort of anthropology is called for, one that is adequate to our experience of agency. Such an account might illuminate the appeal of manual work in a way that is neither romantic nor nostalgic, but rather simply gives credit to the practice of building things, fixing things, and routinely tending to things, as an element of human flourishing."
Matthew B. Crawford
I guess what I like about this, and what I like about the entire book is the elevation of manual work. Mostly Crawford is referring to maintenance as a work of the hands but in order to translate this into architecture. I feel that the education of architecture is incomplete, the act of creation and creative work is incomplete, without some form of manual engagement. Making things requires a manual engagement, it requires the maker to experience and create the world through his or her hands.
Just thinking. Now that the term is closing I will begin to use this blog as a trail of breadcrumbs to help me trace my thoughts and re-shuffle my ongoing file...
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