Post Babel: Death of Craftsman

One of the important texts in the history of modern architecture is Adolf Loos’s “Ornament and Crime,” written in 1908. Loos argued that ornament had become unnecessary — and, more importantly, that it represented a waste of human labour, material and time. Architecture should no longer be burdened by the decorative traditions of the past simply because they had been inherited from previous generations.

His argument can be understood through five central ideas:

1. Ornament was economically wasteful. Decorative details required additional labour, craftsmanship and material without necessarily improving the function of an object or building. For Loos, this was not merely an aesthetic problem; it was an economic one. A society should not continue investing enormous amounts of labour into things whose primary purpose was decoration.

2. Ornament represented an earlier stage of civilisation. Loos suggested that as societies developed, their need for decoration diminished. The modern individual should not need to surround themselves with elaborate ornament in order to express status, identity or cultural sophistication.

3. Architecture needed to respond to modern life. The world in which Loos was writing was changing rapidly. Cities were expanding, industrial production was transforming economies, new materials were becoming available and objects were increasingly being manufactured rather than individually crafted. Architecture could no longer simply reproduce the visual language of the past.

4. Architectural quality did not require decoration: Architecture could derive its richness from proportion, space, material, construction and composition, rather than from applying ornament as a superficial layer.

5. Architecture should express its own time. A modern society equipped with modern technologies and new systems of production should not continue dressing its buildings in the architectural language of previous centuries.

What I find particularly interesting about Ornament and Crime is it sits at a fascinating moment in history when industrialisation was fundamentally changing the relationship between society, production and the things we used every day.

The emergence of mass production created an entirely different logic. Instead of producing an individually crafted chair, lamp, door handle or building component through hours of skilled labour, industry could increasingly produce thousands of identical objects efficiently and cheaply. Standardisation became an economic advantage. Repetition became a virtue rather than a deficiency.

In that context, Loos's rejection of ornament aligned remarkably well with the emerging industrial economy.

• The simpler the object, the easier it was to standardise.
• The more standardised it became, the easier it was to manufacture.
• The easier it was to manufacture, the more widely it could be distributed.

And suddenly, architecture was no longer simply about designing individual buildings. It became part of a much larger transformation in which the entire material environment of society could be designed, manufactured and distributed at scale.

These principles eventually proliferated into furniture, interiors, products, graphics, transportation, appliances and virtually every other aspect of the designed environment. The modern world increasingly became a world of standardised objects: chairs, lights, windows, kitchens, cars, telephones, appliances and eventually entire building systems. Thus rejection of ornament therefore became intertwined with something much bigger: the industrialisation of design itself.

Architecture moved away from the idea of the building as a unique, handcrafted object and towards the idea of the building as something that could be rationalised, systematised and potentially mass-produced.

And here, for me, lies the great irony. Loos was attacking ornament partly because he saw it as a symbol of wasted labour — yet his rejection of ornament arrived at precisely the moment when industrial capitalism was developing the capacity to produce the material world at unprecedented scale.

What began as a cultural and architectural critique of ornament consequently became part of a much larger transformation in the relationship between architecture, technology, economics and society. There is something almost paradoxical about this trajectory.

Loos was, in many ways, arguing for less: less decoration, less waste, less unnecessary labour, less attachment to the past. Industrial modernity took that principle and turned it into more: more objects, more buildings, more production, more consumption and ultimately more of the same designed environment reproduced across society.

In parallel, Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, written in the 1930s, looks at a related transformation, but from the perspective of art rather than architecture. His concern was not simply that technology could reproduce artworks; it was that mechanical reproduction fundamentally changed what an artwork was, how it was experienced and what gave it its cultural authority.

The consequence was not simply that there were more images. It was that the relationship between production and consumption had fundamentally changed. The artwork no longer necessarily needed to be experienced as a unique object created through the hand of an individual maker. It could become an image, a reproduction, a commodity and a mass cultural experience. And I think this is where Benjamin's argument begins to speak directly to architecture.

Because architecture was undergoing a remarkably similar transformation- of the building itself was increasingly becoming detached from the individual act of making it.

• The craftsman was gradually replaced by the industrial worker.
• The workshop was replaced by the factory.
• The individually made component was replaced by the standardised product.
• The knowledge accumulated through generations of making was increasingly separated from the person who designed the building.
• A building could now be conceived in one place, documented in another, manufactured somewhere else and assembled by hundreds of people who might never have met the architect — or even understood the building as a complete work.

This was an extraordinary gain in productive capacity. But it also represented a profound cultural loss.

The medieval or traditional craftsman was not simply a pair of hands executing somebody else's instructions. Their knowledge was embedded in the material itself: knowing how stone fractures, how timber behaves, how a joint should be made, how ornament relates to structure, how a particular material should be handled. The act of making was itself a form of knowledge.

In this sense, I see the crisis of modern architecture as part of the same crisis Benjamin identified in art. Mechanical reproduction did not merely change the appearance of things; it changed our relationship with the act of making them. Architecture, perhaps more than almost any other discipline, embodies this contradiction. Modernism gave us extraordinary possibilities: standardisation, efficiency, affordability, new materials, new construction techniques and the possibility of providing better environments to millions of people rather than a privileged few. But the same process also progressively displaced the craftsman from the centre of architectural production.

The building became a product of systems rather than the expression of a continuous chain of human making. And perhaps this is the deeper story behind the transition from ornament to modernity.

We often tell the history of Modernism as a story of liberation — liberation from historical styles, unnecessary decoration and outdated conventions. And there is truth in that. But I think it can also be understood as a story of displacement.

We displaced ornament. Then we displaced craft. Then we displaced the craftsman. And replaced them with an alienated workforce, separated from the material, process and final product of their own labour.

And perhaps that is the real crisis that both Loos and Benjamin, in very different ways, help us see: the transformation of culture from something made through human hands and embedded in particular places into something that could be reproduced, standardised and distributed at scale across the globe (goods, services and labour).

Architecture did not escape the crisis of mechanical reproduction. It became one of its largest and most permanent expressions. The modern environment was no longer simply designed. It was manufactured.

who MAKES?

Increasingly architects are told within the academic as well as professional sphere to imagine architecture as a collective effort, similar to an orchestra, where through the collective efforts of multiple specialists who shoulder no responsibility towards the ACT OF MAKING a manifestation / condensation of all the input, all the feedback, all the data, constraints, opportunities, stakeholder engagements, policy compliance etc each Specialist / Social Scientist / Stakeholder / Client and Investor even will claim merit for MAKING "it" happen and therefore MAKING it...according to me ludicrous situation, similar to say a Paint manufacturer or Gallery owner or the Buyer can claim merit for works of the Artist. 

An excerpt from interview by an upcoming practice SER Architects:

"What needs to change in the field of architecture according to you?

From our point of view architecture needs to change starting from the figure of the architect. By eliminating the common understanding of a mastermind seeking the next masterpiece that will become an icon in history, we believe that architecture could find its way into the background of life and become an enabler and a guide rather than an imposer. We should be offering spaces of possibilities, rather than forcing the signature of a person onto the lives of other people. We think that architecture should be rather understood as a matter of relations than as matter of objects."

Their response above captures the current position architects increasingly find themselves in and often, like here start believing in what is being virtue signaled.

In an orchestra one only imagine the absence one would feel if the pianist or the violinist didn't show up! Ofcourse every musician would lend their own personal touch to the the composition through their presence and years of practice, but will they claim credits to the composition itself? or would one walk up to a Composer and say it is a collective effort and try not to make music as if its your next masterpiece and a milestone in history instead blend with the ambient sounds of the forest or better still let the musicians compose. Before a smartarse says "Jazz!", the musicians there play the role of composers that need probably significantly more discipline and ability to play a dual role of playing music and simultaneously composing in real time...they haven't relinquished the ACT of MAKING, they still PLAY and CREATE music.

Architecture as a profession still MAKES and it needs to take and be given credit for that. We would often lean on the expertise or specialisms or knowledge of others but the intentionality or compositional decisions or hierarchy of priorities are being pulled together by Architect. If anything, going by the abysmal quality of our buildings, cities and world we need some solid mastermind hero architects who take pride and confidence in putting pen to paper and calling out shit.

Work

When Gregor Samsa woke up transformed into an insect, his first concern was not to be late for work, Kafka's Metamorphosis (1915), summing up human existence, or specifically working class human existence.

Bombay / Mumbai

I left Bombay 16 odd years ago. So every visit, is a snapshot in time. I witness Bombay transforming into Mumbai, a different city from the one I fondly remember growing up in. I often find myself searching for familiarity, an accidental artifact omitted by the wave of reconstruction, a compound wall, a tree, an edge, a gutter, a road, a building even, embedded like shrapnel within the new, accumulating dust, soot and memories. Like China Mielville’s The City and the City, the two cities coexist one renewed other in decay. The street I grew up in has changed from four storeys to twenty storeys, spaces in between reduced to mere offsets. The building that has my childhood home lies in ruins, abandoned and uncared for in light of imminent reconstruction. Views of the surrounding tropical landscape once afforded by these four storey buildings, have been replaced by collage of windows. Windows that bombard you with varying shades of light and sounds from lives of others that look towards you as voyeuring, co-witnesses of an imminent, deliberate, collective tragedy...Only place where my beloved suburban Bombay survives is in my friend, Kiran's home in a small gifted painting, preserved in time for us to reminisce and savour nostalgia of spaces lost.

Nice Quote

Ludwig Mies van Der Rohe said, "Architecture is the Will of an Epoch translated into Space".

Christmas and Architecture

Robert A. Scott in the book “The Gothic Enterprise: A guide to understanding the Medieval Cathedral” writes “We might also imagine that the long time required to build Gothic Cathedrals added to the depth of the collective identity they engendered. It almost seemed to serve their purpose that they should not be completed too quickly. It takes time for collective identity to form, develop and harden. The knowledge that Canterbury Cathedral, for example was 365 years in the making is very important part of the collective identity that has developed around it.

We are accustomed to asking how communities of people managed to build cathedrals, but we can turn the questions around and ask how cathedrals built communities. The sheer scale of the undertaking, which engaged generations of people as workers, witnesses and monitors, proponents and skeptics for periods of time measured not in decades but in centuries, strengthened existing forms of communitas and collective identity, and gave rise to new ones.”

Robert A. Scott above explores the connection between time, collective identity, and cathedral construction. The prolonged timelines of Gothic Cathedrals, like Canterbury, where 365 years were invested, contributed significantly to the depth of the collective identity surrounding them. Scott suggests that the deliberate pace of construction allowed for the gradual formation, development, and solidification of collective identity.

Shifting perspective, we contemplate not only how communities built cathedrals but also how cathedrals, through their monumental scale and multi-generational engagement, played a pivotal role in shaping and reinforcing existing forms of communities. 

The enduring construction site of Sagrada Familia in Barcelona exemplifies this evolution, where the Cathedral continues to be constructed through technological advancements afforded by passage of time.

The 2019 Notre Dame fire served as a contemporary example, revealing how the restoration efforts galvanized a global community. The swift mobilisation of funds, the involvement of over 1000 workers, and the use of centuries-old oak trees from across France underscored the enduring relationship between buildings and the communities they symbolise.

This dynamic interplay between communities and structures extends beyond cathedrals to encompass various religious and institutional buildings worldwide. The lesson for modern designers and patrons aspiring to create transformative urban spaces or “symbols of excellence” is clear: time is indispensable. The rush to achieve ambitious goals devoid of temporal investment risks rendering projects mere follies, devoid of the profound impact that the passage of time can bestow.

Gentrification panel 13

In cities where initiative to construct the city resides in the private sector, density is directly linked to wealth creation and profitability. The profession of built environment is expected to work with the brief. An architect or planner may be able to inform or influence the brief but always within limitation, and in most instances where professionals have been reduced to mere service providers (voluntarily or systemic), it is natural that they adopt ¥€$ is MORE and MORE is a resounding ¥€$ motto, in the interest of private capital that employs them.