Wednesday 23 March 2011

David Pye

Reading this book (written 1968) has truely got my brain going.  This is a primary list of questions/thoughts it has inspired in me, and quotes from it:

'On the workman's depends a great part of the quality of our environment' (p17)
'It may be mentioned in passing that in workmanship the care counts for more than the judgement and dexterity; though care may well become habitual and unconscious.' (p20)

If risk is only in the workmans hand, does the making of a (successful) machine lead from stored risk to stored success and deflated/depleted risk?
'"Is the result predetermined and unalterable once production begins?"'(p22)
Can risk lead to the creation of certainty?

'The workmanship of risk has no exclusive perogative of quality.  What it has exclusively is an immensely various range of qualities, without which at its command the art of design becomes arid and impoverished.'(p23)
Is this still relevant?  I believe it is, however I also believe the quality of mechanical production has improved sine the advent of computerisation.

And once again, the tool as an extension of the hand crops up (p28) - when making, are we, the makers, part of the machinery?  Do we become the tool?

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