Entry Five: The Tragedy of Development

In Marshall Berman's book 'All that is Solid Melts into Air', we understand the story of Goethe's Faust.  Goethe’s Faust was a life-long work of his, which he started from the age of twenty-one right up until the year just before his death at the age of eighty-three.

I think this is very apt as the characters are able to experience the breadth of life and drastic developments in Western society as Goethe himself does.
Goethe’s Faust is driven by the desire for development, he experiences three stages of what Goethe refers to as ‘metamorphoses’.

In the first metamorphosis, Goethe uses Faust to depict ‘The Dreamer’.
‘Faust lived alone and dreamed.’ His mind was restless and not put to use, trapped within the four walls of his room. Isolated from his neighbours.

In the second metamorphosis, ‘The Lover’, we read about how Faust develops when he gets into a romantic relationship.

‘He intertwined his life with the life of another person, and learned to love.’

In the third and last metamorphosis, Goethe depicts Faust transforming through ‘his last incarnation’-‘The Developer’.

Faust now ‘connects his personal drives with the economic, political and social forces that drive the world; he learns to build and destroy… He pits all his powers against nature and society… He strives to change not only his own life but everyone else’s as well…. to construct a radically new social environment that will empty the old world out or break it down.’
In this last section, he has finally found a fulfilling purpose for his mind. This section starts with Faust and Mephistopheles alone on a jagged mountain peak. They are lethargic and lacklustre, when suddenly Faust gets enraged at the idea of the sea’s energy not being put to use, it is surging endlessly backwards and forwards without achieving anything and now he wants to drive the idea of harnessing nature’s energy forward. He then proceeds to develop, he takes his visions and puts them into concrete programs, he ruthlessly builds the modern world through intensive labour. This labour should know no bounds, day and night, land and sea, everything must fall before the rush of production and construction. Before now he has been on a path of self-development which now alters itself to a path of economic development.

At the end, amidst the noise of construction, he proclaims himself ‘fully alive’, something he seems to have been desperate for throughout his life, therefore, he is now ready to die. He has developed himself and the world around him until the very end.

Goethe conceives the developer as tragic as well as heroic, we are supposed to see not only how Faust has put the world on a great new path of amazing possibilities, but the suffering to humankind which he has ignored. This is reflected in the capitalist society we live in today where power is held in the hands of a few and they are driven by profit and egoism. Power in the wrong hands can harm our society and our environment. Goethe’s Faust was written during the time of the industrial revolution so Goethe will have seen for himself how drastic economic change can cause harm as well as good. We must take responsibility for the suffering we cause whilst drastic economic changes take place.

Entry Four: Jane Rendell's chapter in Occupying Architecture (1998) 'doing it, (un) doing it, (over) doing it yourself- Rhetorics of Architectural Abuse'

Jane Rendell addresses the idea that as architecture students, we are let to believe that there is one way of 'doing architecture'. The prestigious role of architect is that of 'imagining architecture' and then 'doing architecture' and that is that, and you can move on to the next architectural dream. Rendell was taught that 'doing it' was that of making things stand up, the 'right' way to do architecture.

Rendell then moves on to talk about her concept of '(un)doing it' whereby although a space may be initially designed in a specific way, it is not necessarily going to be executed in that exact manner forever or even at all. The occupant of the space can indeed change the purpose of the space for their own requirements and there isn't much that can be done to stop this.

The next idea of '(over)doing' it I believe refers to thoughts that those in the architectural profession think too highly of themselves as the only ones possible of the privileged activity of architecture. However we are in fact '(over)doing it' and indeed everyone can be a part of the activity.

I think Rendell does well to question the whole institution of architecture and the way in which we our taught and the way in which we may believe we are great 'makers of space' when we actually aren't. There is a definite main theme of anti-establishment, and we are given a push and shove towards a re-imagination of spaces and re-evaluation of the architectural system.

Entry three: Matthew Crawford - The Case for Working with Your Hands

In the Chapter 'The Separation of Thinking from Doing' from Matthew Crawford's 'The Case for Working with Your Hands', he offers an overview of how the disassociation of individual thought and action has led to the degradation of work.

This entry addresses how over the course of the twentieth century, workers have become a cog within a machine, easily replaceable by allowing 'craftsmanship' to die by dividing all work into smaller processes. We are now channelled into office cubicles or factory lines and the human brain is prohibited from fully engaging.

'The Wheelwright' example describes how the worker has a complex and rewarding job to do as he feel stye natural kinks in the wood, no piece of wood is the same as the next, he has to listen to his material and feel how to work it. This is craftsmanship, no wheel he makes is the same as the next and a  machine can do this same job.

Corporations took over central control of 'the machine' and forced the workers into being 'standardised parts'. Implementing this and changing the workforce from being 'craftsmen' to being just a small part of the process comes across to me as very sinister. It diminishes job satisfaction and leads to everyone being and feeling completely disposable.