The Craft Reader

The scope of the Craft Reader is breathtaking. Finally, here is a text that successfully contextualizes the diverse range of writings on craft. By gathering these thoughts into a clearly articulated set of arguments Adamson has helped to shape the field of craft discourse. This book will stand as an invaluable tool for craft scholars. * Sandra Alfoldy, Nova Scotia College of Art & Design * A much needed outline history of 19th and 20th century crafts within a wide social and cultural context, as well as an overview of the most important issues in crafts today. * Stefan Muthesius, University of East Anglia * This anthology confirms, in multiple ways across a century and a half of continual practice and debate, that the presence of craftsmanship is virtually inseparable from the design and realization of the material world. * Kenneth Frampton, Columbia University * Glenn Adamson's Craft Reader is the rarest of anthologies: at once an excellent and wide-reaching compilation of craft scholarship, and a provocative challenge to the same. * Maria Elena Buszek, Kansas City Art Institute * The idea of craft has jumped to the forefront of creative work. The many young artisans now engaged in digital fabrication, tangible interfaces, and do-it yourself electronics may enjoy reflecting on the few who kept craft alive through the industrial night, and on those whose theories and practices belong in any technological age. This astute collection gives rich context to all such thought. * Malcolm McCullough, University of Michigan * Thought-provoking, revealing, opinionated, intelligent, accessible and comprehensive ... a huge achievement. * Grant Gibson, Crafts Magazine * This new attention to craft, to work done through some close contact between hand and thing, has been enriched by the publication of The Craft Reader, an imposing compendium edited by Glenn Adamson, an American who is head of graduate studies and deputy head of research at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He has cast his net wide for this anthology, which covers two centuries of thinking by craftsmen, critics, historians, anthropologists and philosophers, including ones you might not have thought would have much to say. Alongside the proper high-class makers like Anni Albers, Bernard Leach and George Nakashima we find Alexis de Tocqueville rubbing shoulders with Karl Marx; Lee Ufan, the Korean-Japanese protagonist of the Mono-ha ("school of things") art movement, with Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics; and Samuel Smiles, the original self-help guru whose very name became a byword for philistine Victorian optimism, with Theodor Adorno, the glowering negative dialectician from Frankfurt. Although the book has been edited with a student readership in mind, its kaleidoscopic mix of materials means it can open fresh perspectives for anyone interested in crafts; and even readers who think they're not interested in craft will be more engaged than they expected, if they give the anthology half a chance. -- Barry Schwabsky, The Nation This thick volume is a compendium of articles on contemporary craft. The subjects examined cover a period of time from the industrial revolution and the canonical texts of the movement "Arts & Crafts" until today. Course covers topics on the new esthetic ceramics or weight of tradition. * [Translation from] Revista de Libros *

Glenn Adamson is Deputy Head of Research and Head of Graduate Studies at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He is author of Thinking Through Craft and co-editor of the Journal of Modern Craft

Acknowledgements Note on the Texts Introduction SECTION 1: HOW TO Section Introduction 1. Introductory Remarks, from The Teachers Handbook of Sljd, Otto Salomon 2. Elements of Handicraft and Design, W. A. S. Benson 3. The Wheelwright's Shop, George Sturt 4. On Weaving, Anni Albers 5. Primitive Pottery, Hal Riegger SECTION 2: CRAFT AND THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION Section Introduction 6. On the Economy of Machines and Manufactures, Charles Babbage 7. Artisans and Machinery, Peter Gaskell 8. How an Aristocracy May Emerge from Industry, from Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville 9. Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool Makers, Samuel Smiles 10. Capital, Karl Marx 11. The Primary Effects of Scientific Management, from Labor and Monopoly Capitalism, Harry Braverman 12. The Workshop of the World: Steam Power and Hand Technology in Mid-Victorian Britain, Raphael Samuel 13. Technological Innovation and Design Economics in Furniture Manufacture, Michael Ettema 14. Artistic America, Siegfried Bing 15. In the Cause of Architecture: The Architect and the Machine, Frank Lloyd Wright 16. Art and the Machine, Hermann Muthesius 17. Building Materials, Adolf Loos 18. Handwerk/Kunsthandwerk, Stefan Muthesius SECTION 3: MODERN CRAFT: IDEALISM AND REFORM Section Introduction 19. The Nature of the Gothic, from The Stones of Venice, John Ruskin 20. The Revival of Handicraft, William Morris 21. Art and Labor, Ellen Gates Starr 22. Art and Workmanship, W. R. Lethaby 23. Slogans, The Work Ahead of Us and The Problem of the Relationship Between Man and Object, Vladimir Tatlin 24. The Way of Craftsmanship, from The Unknown Craftsman: A Japenese Insight into Beauty, Setsu Yanagi 25. A Potter's Book, Bernard Leach 26. Initiation and the Crafts, Ren Gunon 27. Indian Handicrafts, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay 28. The Relation of the Past to the Demands of the Present, World Crafts Conference proceedings (1964) 29. Centering, M. C. Richards 30. Introduction to Craftsman Lifestyle: The Gentle Revolution, Eudorah Moore 31. The Soul of a Tree, George Nakashima 32. The Long Shadow of William Morris: Paradigmatic Problems of Twentieth-Century American Furniture, Edward S. Cooke, Jr. SECTION 4: THE PRESENCE OF CRAFT IN THE AGE OF MASS PRODUCTION Section introduction 33. The Shoemaker of Dreams, Salvatore Ferragamo 34. Crafting Grand Cru Chocolates in Contemporary France, Susan J. Terrio 35. From Peasant to Artisan: Motor Mechanics in a Nigerian Town, Sara Berry 36. Destiny World: Textile Casualties in Southern Nigeria, David T. Doris 37. On a Particular Kind of Love and the Specificity of Soviet Production, Sergei Alasheev 38. Original Copies, Philip Tinari 39. What is Cybernetics?, from The Human Use of Humans, Norbert Wiener 40. Abstracting Craft: The Practiced Digital Hand, Malcolm McCullough 41. Digital Artisans Manifesto, European Digital Artists Network, Richard Barbrook and Pit Schultz 42. Craft Versus Design: Moving Beyond a Tired Dichotomy, Rafael Cardoso SECTION 5: CRAFT IN THEORY: AESTHETICS, ESSENCE, STATUS Section Introduction 43. The Nature and Art of Workmanship, David Pye 44. The Genesis of the Technical Object: The Process of Concretization, from Du Mode dExistence des Objets Techniques, Gilbert Simondon 45. Forms in the Realms of Matter from The Life of Forms in Art, Henri Focillon 46. Rhythm, Elsie Fogerty 47. The Mande Blacksmiths: Knowledge, Power and Art in West Africa, Patrick R. McNaughton 48. African Art: Where the Hand Has Ears, Amadou Hmpat B 49. Walter Benjamin: Traces of Craft, Esther Leslie 50. Functionalism Today, Theodor Adorno 51. The Thing, Martin Heidegger 52. Rappel a l'Ordre: The Case for the Tectonic, Kenneth Frampton 53. Art and Craft, from The Principles of Art, R. G. Collingwood 54. Art and Work, Harold Rosenberg 55. Comment and Responses, John Bentley Mays 56. Curatorial Comment from The Make