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American Behavioral Scientist
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The Way We Do Things Around Here

Specification Versus Craft Culture in the History of Building

Scott Francisco

DEGW North America, New York

Buildings have always played a role in negotiating the boundary between individual expression and social context. Through the lens of architectural history, this article explores the relationships between "community," "culture," "craft," and "specification"—concepts fundamental to the way people express themselves and develop group behaviors and collective meaning. The article focuses on the tension between "craft," as an implicit community practice based on "skill" and "knowledge," and "specification," which presumes an explicit and abstract means of communicating "information." At the center is the elusive concept of "design." But what is design? How does it affect culture at an incremental and substantial level? How do new values, both individual and collective, weigh in to the question of cultural change through design? Coming full circle, the article reflects on how the design of built space is integrated into communicative praxis itself, framing and cultivating particular forms of dialogue while displacing or resisting others.

Key Words: design • craft • culture • specification • tradition architecture • construction

American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 50, No. 7, 970-988 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0002764206298322
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T. Venturini
Verba Volant, Scripta Manent: The Discontinuity Effect of Explicit Media
American Behavioral Scientist, March 1, 2007; 50(7): 879 - 896.
[Abstract] [PDF]