In a message dated 5/11/00 4:30:46 PM Central Daylight Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:

<< We'll take this as an admission on the part of a Contractor that there may
be
 crazier and/or more inscrutable people than design professionals lurking out
 there. >>

Ralph,

I don't see it as a confession, I see it as my personal refusal to believe a
line of prepackaged bull when it is handed to me.

My perspective is that contractors & design professionals are in the same
commode when it comes to the whims of property owners (to be specific, to
those who have control over paying the bills, the owners of capital) and that
contrary to the traditional dichotomy of new construction where we are all
squared off as to-the-death adversaries, that in histo presto (or mundane
maintenance) the contractor and design professional, barring conflict of
interest hassles, should endeavor to work together as an informed team
against the general insanity of owners and to the optimal benefit of the
building or structure.

My suspicion is that the socio-economic conditions (myths?) that cause a
feeling of separation between the trades (builders) and design professionals
(architects & engineers) were initiated and continue to be imposed by capital
interests outside of both camps. I believe that 19th century industrial
control concepts of workforce management are imposed on the builders and
design professionals equally.

I am irritated at trades when they cannot see that the design professionals
need help and assistance, and perplexed when design professionals do not
sense that they are not better off than any other portion of the working
class.

My theory is that people who feel that they are of a higher order in any
heirarchy are often compensated less than those they are above and that the
sense of height is a false compensation for lower wages. The whole idea of
encouraging dialogue in the preservation industry, for me, is that it wakes
us all up to realize that we are sloshing around in the same smelly
whirlpool.

The increased interest in physiologic intelligence, emotional intelligence in
the scientific & medical communities interests me as it is reinforcing
measures of intelligence that pertain to tactile knowledge, which connects
directly into hands-on trades... but as well, reinforces the importance of
the spatial intelligence of design professionals as artists. I believe that
there is a knowledge of the body, and I don't just mean nookie or riding a
bicycle, but that the body retains knowledge of process in building things.

The motions of a skilled brickmason laying brick represent a physical
knowledge and in itself is an effficient, though ephemeral, rendering of
beauty. The symptom is the building.

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