Outrage: ‘Craft might make us happier but it’s not going to save the world’
By: Wilkinson, Tom
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Publisher: London EMAP Publishing Limited 2017Edition: 15 February 2017.Subject(s): ARCHITECTURE GENERAL (AR-GEN)Online resources: Click here
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Architectural reviewSummary: There is a man who sits every day in the window of his shop in the London district of Shoreditch and whittles. He whittles spoons, and over the course of the day shavings pile around the feet of his stool until they breach the tops of his shoes. It makes me think of Dante, the punishment of the gentrifiers perhaps, and wonder if it is his ultimate fate to be submerged in sawdust and suffocate beneath the weight of his own futility.
Is craft just something beard-wearers do at the weekend – or, trust-fund permitting, every day – in a vain attempt to assuage their alienation by returning to an antiquated way of making? Or is craft an essential albeit neglected mode of activity that could, if resurrected, make the world a better place? The latter is a popular opinion, one shared by mindfulness gurus and attendees of pottery workshops. To a limited extent, it is backed up by empirical evidence: one study suggests that knitters are made happier by their activity, especially if they do it en masse.
| Item type | Current location | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
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Articles Abstract Database
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School of Architecture Archieval Section | Not for loan | 2021-2021627 |
There is a man who sits every day in the window of his shop in the London district of Shoreditch and whittles. He whittles spoons, and over the course of the day shavings pile around the feet of his stool until they breach the tops of his shoes. It makes me think of Dante, the punishment of the gentrifiers perhaps, and wonder if it is his ultimate fate to be submerged in sawdust and suffocate beneath the weight of his own futility.
Is craft just something beard-wearers do at the weekend – or, trust-fund permitting, every day – in a vain attempt to assuage their alienation by returning to an antiquated way of making? Or is craft an essential albeit neglected mode of activity that could, if resurrected, make the world a better place? The latter is a popular opinion, one shared by mindfulness gurus and attendees of pottery workshops. To a limited extent, it is backed up by empirical evidence: one study suggests that knitters are made happier by their activity, especially if they do it en masse.
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