ABSTRACT
In his essay “Technê,” scholar and historian Robert Meagher states, “Technê is making something into something it is not”. This chapter presents a pair of essays rooted in the relationship between designing and making, between concept and reality. In the early chapters of Nature and the Art of Workmanship, David Pye relays the importance of workmanship and craft in the man-made world around us, advancing the idea that audiences often interpret qualities of a final product as having been “designed” when they are actually the result of workmanship. In Refabricating Architecture, Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake propose a drastic shift in the way in which we conceive an architectural work as a built entity. Drawing from research in the automotive, aviation, and shipbuilding industries, they question the effectiveness of current industry standards for construction. In both essays, the authors discuss the relationship between those who design and those who make.
