In Pasadena, where I live, the community values careful monitoring of the design of new construction and remodeling of buildings. The city has established a panel to review proposed building projects which, as a group, is aptly called, 'The Design Review Board'. This panel, consisting of professionals and other appointed interested parties, takes its work seriously. It's not easy to get their approval.

The design of things, the design of cities, are all required to go through their requisite 'purification'. But instead of a distillery's chromium piping, a city has code-enforced banality. The act of codifying what is 'good', as practiced in our administered system, renders our cities into something not awful. Yet something that is without character.

The Architect's Newspaper:

"Details are sparse during the period of Zaha Hadid replacing Assemblage. First, over the two year span, Assemblage was never officially notified that they had lost the bid. Although, in private they knew they were frozen out of conversation. Second, leading Iraqi architectural critic Ihsan Fethi said there has been a veil of secrecy as he has tried several times to see the plan for the parliamentary building. Finally, the Iraqi Council of Representatives never had a chance to choose the winner selected by the RIBA judges."

The title of an interesting article about craft in the New York Times, by NPR correspondent Alan Davidson. Interesting to me, because I'm curious about the economic models that support crafts-people and how they compare with the economics of those who craft cities, and the value to those who support the craft.

"Guenther Demnig is the artist and sculptor behind the stumbling stones (shown in the photo in the link). Here, he installs new bricks in Berlin. He says formal memorials are too abstract. Not so with the stumbling stones. 'Suddenly they are there, right outside your front door, at your feet, in front of you,' he says."

"He also has no problem with the fact that he’s never had a building actually go up in New York. “Architecture is not really the issue, here,” he says. “The whole system is so strong and the geography so unique that any one building doesn’t matter much.” Is it possible, I suggest, that New York simply doesn’t really need Rem Koolhaas? For the first time in nearly three-quarters of an hour, his lips laboriously arrange themselves into a smile. “It’s a surprising conclusion, and I wouldn’t want to confirm it,” he answers. “But I can’t deny it either."

To the craftsperson, the grain of a material is the most important consideration in determining its use, and how it will be transformed into craft. ‘Grain’ is an essential characteristic of the craft; the analogy extends well beyond the metaphor of wood to a carver or stone to a sculptor. Craft is universal, and 'grain' is the essential and basic to the understanding of the endeavor.

Architectural style has been assigned by the less thoughtful and those with a bias, as the primary character maker of a city.

Style, in the most basic and obvious way, deeply affects the way a city looks. But it quality really assumes the role of primary character maker.

Art, in the common reasoning, is superior to craft, set apart for a higher purpose. Contrary to common reasoning, I believe that they are the same thing in ultimate effect. Only art is stripped of the practical constraints integral to craft, becoming a subset requirement of well considered craft.

As a society, we prescribe a procedure and a set of rules to make good cities. We like good, and we dislike bad. When someone does something bad, makes a bad building, or does something that is deemed inappropriate to the health and welfare of the general public, a rule is made, and a procedure is enlisted to carry out the rule.

The correct gear is part of craft. The tools that amplify and leverage the skilled hands of a craftsperson are elemental to its creation.

There may be numbers on how many individuals are preoccupied by craft across the globe. No matter how many exactly; suffice to say that it is in sufficient numbers that we are not in any risk of losing the trait in our universal society. It is a self-sustaining characteristic, and it has been with us since creation.

Craft exists in spite of the forces surrounding and influencing it. It derives from the love of a human being for the materials, the process, and the realization of making something exceptional. It exists, often not by choice, but by a great inner desire of the craftsperson. Because craft is the act of making something useful, thought through, and with an artist’s sensibilities, it can be the most compelling of endeavors…

One of the great experiences of an interesting and vibrant city is in the personal act of moving through it. The processional quality of walking down streets endowed with the quality of being great ‘outdoor rooms,’ the act of moving through from one interesting surprise to another, these all make cities compelling to be in on a day-to-day basis. Even to someone very familiar to a certain street processional, moving through one of the great urban volumes remains a sublime experience. Taking-in the space itself, the tree canopy, the mass and detail of the flanking buildings, the shop windows that draw you in, and the interesting vantage point that you see ahead, these are the things that keep us in love with a city over time.

Craft is one of the great endeavors of people. It is in the act of craft that people become the most like their Creator.