SLOW HANDS QUICK WORK

From tropical coolers and batiks, to the prospect of economic prosperity, the collective image of the tropics has evolved. The tropics have always been extolled through certain tropes . In literary works such as George Orwell’s Burmese Days, the tropics is presented to readers as an extreme environment, with certain remnants of neocolonial stereotypes described through visceral use of language. Words such as hot, stuffy and wild are not uncommon, suggesting a condition of the tropics that warrants its own phenomenology. The spatial geography of the tropics, as described by Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, spans the region of the tropics extending beyond the equatorial belt with the hot and humid regions.

In recent times, the image of the tropics is one of the green metropole, brimming with seeming productivity - part of the larger network of the market economy. Wherein the tropics was once envisaged as a site of fetish, it now becomes the site of the fiscal

The colonial project is no longer a domain singularly expounded by the West. Through the spread of capital and the promise or chance of prosperity, China has effectively strongarmed nation states in a bid to harness the One Belt One Road agenda. This is usually carried out strategically through a prospective collaboration where the Chinese government would project a country’s success through a series of infrastructure projects that would be funded by them. These projects, often times are based on weak premises or solely serving the New Silk Road agenda and therefore, failing to generate any revenue. Consequently, the borrowing nation state falls into debt trap and becomes subservient to the economic demands of China.

The ubiquity of certain architectural technology has proliferated the built environments of thick and dense cities. This normalcy is even more apparent in large urban areas that are directly complicit to the forces of the market- one might argue that the metropolitan condition is therefore a participant in the market economy. Shiny steel glass skyscrapers are made of these.

Meanwhile, all along, the legacy of building in the tropics has left a robust architectural language that has been deployed effectively over the years. The second rhetoric would be, can and should the language of the tropical project infiltrate the way this new development in Colombo is conceived?

Across the island, almost half of currently commissioned projects are Chinese funded endeavours. The head honcho, Chinese Communications Company, from the beginning of the One Belt One Road Initiative has had a huge stake in these projects both in its construction timeline, and the operations of eventual buildings.

The Sri Lankans, on the other hand have had to catch up with the speed of the development of the city. The rich architectural legacy of Bawa and his colleagues warrant a kind of patience in crafting a building. Elements of buildings are crafted, master builders in constant conversation with the architectmaking the practice of architecture a slow one. In the meantime, developments of the city has left behind this domain of architecture that requires excess capital and time, and hence the rise of urban vernacular shells and buildings designed and built by the state and the everyday bass.

“But the craft of the hand is richer than we commonly imagine[…]All the work of the hand is rooted in thinking.” - Martin

Heidegger

Craft had always had a hand in shaping the built environment of Sri Lanka. From very early on craftsmen had a big role in Sri Lankan folklore. During the reign of the Kandyan kingdom, centuries prior to British colonial rule, local artists and craftsmen enjoyed the frequent patronage of the King. Much of the work was related to refurbishing Buddhist temples, producing paintings and objects for the kingdom. The ecosystem of craft was a highly complex one, with a variety of specialisations for blacksmiths, carpenters and silversmiths. As the kingdom was soon captured in 1815, the notion of craft began to take on a different role, one of building the colonial empire. (Jones, 2008)

Up until 1950s, the construction industry in then Ceylon operated in a traditional model imported by the British. Contractors handed in tender rates, contingent on the rates on basses or craftsmen, which in today’s model would be the subcontractors. The drawing set was kept fairly basic and graphical, and much of the detail would be resolved on site or in the realm of the workshop with baass unahe, also known as the ‘most honorable craftsmen’. In the 1960s, building materials other than basic steel sections and cement were unavailable and had to be imported. Modern fixtures or fittings that were hard to come by were substituted for handcrafted pieces by basses. Basses were highly skilled labourers and craftsmen that worked with their hands to build. As a result of constraint, the spirit of experimentation and improvisation fuelled by an ecosystem of basses, created a deep interest in the chance of traditional methods of construction and craftsmanship.

The 1970s saw the apotheosis of this method of design, when Geoffrey Bawa took on buildings of a larger scale. A resort could be designed and built with a modest set of twenty drawings, relying and collaborating closely with local builders and craftsmen to resolve much of the detailed design on site. By the 1980s however, larger public projects such as the new Parliament Buildings at Kotte warranted a much bigger drawing set - that of more than three thousand drawing. This was largely in part due to the fact that it was built by an international contracting firm as opposed to the deployment of local labour.

(Robson & Daswatte, 1998)

Today, craft and the labour of craftsmen are relegated to a form of upper class ornamentation, only ever afforded by affluent patrons. This is a stark departure from the way craft was being deployed in the Kandy kingdom, which served public and civic purpose.

What is Craft?

How do we define this term we call craft? Well, in its most Teutonic sense, craft represents strength, force, power and virtue. Inherent within the act of craft comes the emphasis on knowledge and skills that are technical and highly specific. This enables one to physically make an object through mastery and technique. Craft is therefore dedicated in the domain of material and technique. (Risatti, 2013) The mantra of craft purports the idea of practice over theory, the act of making before concept and therefore design before research. Herein lies a framework in which architecture can be practiced or operated by.

Curiously, the notion of craft had always been a Western canon. In this context, craft has come to mean many things. William Morris’ definition of craft suggests that there is no division of labour, rather than production without any machinery or tools. (Sarsby, 1997) In the South Asian context, craft is well aligned to Morris’ definition.

In craft we trust. Craft requires a conscious withdrawal on the reliance of intellectual awareness of process to a submission to direct-sense contact, out of which produces a new understanding of material. Oneness with the material emerges and a reciprocity in postures of the human hand and the gesture of the material results. (Robertson, 1962) In the Studio Dwelling project, Architect Palinda Kannangara works closely with a local master builder and a small team to build the building. The concrete walls were casted with board form concrete through a series of panel modules that repeat every 3 feet. The combination of modalities in the casting technique and the knowledge of the workers in working with a certain kind of concrete, resulted in a finely crafted wall surface that represented the material gestures of the boardform concrete, etching and registration all present within its surface. In this simple act of casting concrete, the builder is a craftsman. He knows his material and its limitations. Therefore, a craftsman must project an attitude of attentive responsiveness. Acceptance and even embrace of the nuances of material, roughness of concrete, imperfection of material curing - is a distinct quality between craftsman and technician. (Robertson, 1962)

A craftsman is often thought of someone who works with the hands. He or she however, should not be confused for a handy layperson. The ecology of craft warrants a method of working that requires a highly sophisticated and evolved set of tools that enable the craftsman to do his job well. Just as the architect has the pencil to sketch, in an act of putting ideas into paper, the craftsman has his tools to shape, carve, sculpt away or unto material. In Sri Lanka, and even parts of South India such as Rajasthan, families of craftsmen pass down tools and methods of making across generations. The tool is an extension and specialisation of the hand that alters the hand’s natural capacities. The skilled user does not think of the hand and the tool as different and detached entities; the tool has grown to be a part of the hand. (Pallasma, 2015)

Craft is typically ascribed as an outcome of labor over time. Postures and efficiency in one’s gestures are paramount in arriving to an outcome. In craft, a craftsman should accept responsibility for every decision, every move or gesture is a conscious act. The final outcome is a complete solution to a problem, or means to the an end - of which, fully owes to the man’s interaction with material. Herein lies the character of careful and intentional execution - very much like a photographer would shoot on film making every shot count, as oppose to a digital format where the abundance of exposures are much more forgiving.

Role of Craft in Architecture

The practice of architecture had always been inextricably linked to craft. Paradoxically, the discipline of architecture and craft may be sitting at the varying spectrums from each other. At its very foundation, the discipline of architecture had always been concerned with questions of methods of representation. The history of drawing was to represent geometry in the form of instruction for a builder or contractor to execute. The drawing was a quintessential bridge between intent and execution, one that had possibly stifled the chance for craft to fully come through.

It was a method of exacting representation and communication that produced a division of labour and material that consequently removed question of craft. In the advent of technology and software, the hand drawn is quick to be replaced with by Computer Aided outputs, handcrafted architectural elements are substituted for readily available products and proprietary systems. The speed of the capital inception and the hasty project timelines has added pressure unto the architectural ecosystem. All too readily available, the practice of architecture quickly becomes a practice of assemblage, rather than one of the making. But enough with the negativity, I’d like to offer the chance for our discipline to redeem itself!

In The Thinking Hand, Juhani Pallasma notes, today the architect usually works from the distance of the architectural studio through drawings and verbal specifications, much like a lawyer, instead of being directly immersed in the material and physical processes of making. (The working hand, 065) The crux of this dynamic is the notion of circularity, constantly straddling between the idea to sketch, model, full-scale test and back again. (Pallasma, 2015)

The connection with the processes of making continues to be seminal, an architect today searches deep personal friendships with craftsmen, artisans and artists in order to reconnect his/her intellectualised world and thinking with the source of all true knowledge. The real world of materiality and gravity, and the sensory and embodied understanding of these physical phenomena. (Pallasma, 2015)

In putting forth a continued relevance of craft in the industry: Craft implies a collaboration between man and his material. Instead of forcing a preconceived notion of form, the craftsman needs to be aware of the innate characteristics of materials and his gestures. Just as architecture is the act of materialising what was translated from pen to paper, the architect too needs to be concerned with the inherent qualities of construction material and processes.

One rhetoric would be: Can the practice of craft, help to build up a position of resistance but capitalize on the latent potentials of a technological civilization, neo-liberal economy? (Robertson, 1962)