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The Nature and Art of Workmanship
This book explores the meaning of hand skill in a thoroughly mechanized age.
143 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1968
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 13, 2012
I can't review this book, it is too amazing.
If there is an 'essential reading' list for creative philosophers though, this should be on it. This is DENSE stuff though- in another writer's hands, this could have become a multi-volume treatise. But Pye is to most artist-philosophers as cold ice cream is to hot butter. I find myself having to stop every few sentences to digest what he's just said, before I can go on.
Seriously. If you enjoy manipulating the universe in any way- cooking, decorating, designing, composing, making music, making things out of wood or plastic or code or silicon or leather or fabric or cats or light or sculpey or paper or fiberglass, and you want to take your thinking-about-that to a higher level, this is your ticket.
If there is an 'essential reading' list for creative philosophers though, this should be on it. This is DENSE stuff though- in another writer's hands, this could have become a multi-volume treatise. But Pye is to most artist-philosophers as cold ice cream is to hot butter. I find myself having to stop every few sentences to digest what he's just said, before I can go on.
Seriously. If you enjoy manipulating the universe in any way- cooking, decorating, designing, composing, making music, making things out of wood or plastic or code or silicon or leather or fabric or cats or light or sculpey or paper or fiberglass, and you want to take your thinking-about-that to a higher level, this is your ticket.
October 31, 2009
So far, the most important things I've gleaned from this book has been an incredibly clear and nuanced system of terminology for thinking about "design" and "workmanship." Amazing that this has been around for 40 years, and I've never really heard it referenced. Something tells me that, although it feels seminal, there might be some more important precedent or antecedent texts with similar or more important versions of this perspective. However, until I can confirm that suspicion, I'll think this book is groudbreaking and essential to my subsequent discussions of "work" in terms of digital textual production (i.e. web-design, digital stories, video blog entries)
October 7, 2025
An incredible treatise against IKEA and the aesthetic culture it inculcates.
David Pye (1914-1998) was an English architect, designer, and craftsman. He wrote this work in 1968 as a volume that delineates the workmanship of risk from the workmanship of certainty, the latter denoting the industrial methods that produce the vast majority of physical goods in contemporary society, and the latter denoting a more intentional, human approach to craft. Specifically, Pye defines workmanship as the use of “any kind of technique or apparatus, in which the quality of the result is not predetermined, but depends on the judgment, dexterity, and care which the maker exercises as he works” (20). Essential to this definition is the implied sense of risk; at any point, the maker can make a mistake in dexterity or judgment, resulting in an error. His care for his task, however, will limit the genuine errors he makes, while still creating unique characteristics within the object he making. Also of central importance for Pye’s definition is that he embraces any technique, which includes the roughest to the most regulated. Someone embodying a workmanship of risk can still, therefore, use power tools, for example. Later, Pye explicitly argues that “‘handicraft’ and ‘hand-made’ are historical or social terms, not technical ones” (26). This definitional move by Pye helpfully avoids all of the troubles that come with attempting to define hand-made or workmanship by limiting the process to a select genus of tools or techniques. For Pye, it is the very intention and love of the maker for his craft (which results in his careful dexterity and judgment) that determines whether something is the product of a workmanship of risk or a workmanship of certainty. Industrial manufacturing that utilizes the most regularized machinery and measurements cannot produce the same aesthetic in objects that are created with the workmanship of risk. Such an aesthetic, for Pye, necessarily involves diversity of color, texture, shape, and more qualities that can be discerned from as broad a range of perception as possible (i.e., when looking at an object up close and when looking at an object from far away).
In addition to this, Pye discusses the relationship between design and workmanship, the balance and tension of different qualities in an object (what he terms equivocality), the durability and quality of objects produced by different means, and more. His ending chapter concludes the work with a call for more amateurs (understood in the traditional sense of people who love something), and the hopeful desire to see a workmanship of risk return, despite all the difficulties that are posed to craftsmanship in the industrial and economic context of contemporary Western society.
Overall, this is a readable and fascinating work that even the non-craftsman can appreciate and enjoy. For anyone investigating the nature of art and aesthetics, Pye’s work provides an invaluable perspective on some of the most concrete matters of the very material and processes whereby art and crafts are made. He may even convince you to pay the extra money for a quality dresser as opposed to the easy route through an IKEA store.
David Pye (1914-1998) was an English architect, designer, and craftsman. He wrote this work in 1968 as a volume that delineates the workmanship of risk from the workmanship of certainty, the latter denoting the industrial methods that produce the vast majority of physical goods in contemporary society, and the latter denoting a more intentional, human approach to craft. Specifically, Pye defines workmanship as the use of “any kind of technique or apparatus, in which the quality of the result is not predetermined, but depends on the judgment, dexterity, and care which the maker exercises as he works” (20). Essential to this definition is the implied sense of risk; at any point, the maker can make a mistake in dexterity or judgment, resulting in an error. His care for his task, however, will limit the genuine errors he makes, while still creating unique characteristics within the object he making. Also of central importance for Pye’s definition is that he embraces any technique, which includes the roughest to the most regulated. Someone embodying a workmanship of risk can still, therefore, use power tools, for example. Later, Pye explicitly argues that “‘handicraft’ and ‘hand-made’ are historical or social terms, not technical ones” (26). This definitional move by Pye helpfully avoids all of the troubles that come with attempting to define hand-made or workmanship by limiting the process to a select genus of tools or techniques. For Pye, it is the very intention and love of the maker for his craft (which results in his careful dexterity and judgment) that determines whether something is the product of a workmanship of risk or a workmanship of certainty. Industrial manufacturing that utilizes the most regularized machinery and measurements cannot produce the same aesthetic in objects that are created with the workmanship of risk. Such an aesthetic, for Pye, necessarily involves diversity of color, texture, shape, and more qualities that can be discerned from as broad a range of perception as possible (i.e., when looking at an object up close and when looking at an object from far away).
In addition to this, Pye discusses the relationship between design and workmanship, the balance and tension of different qualities in an object (what he terms equivocality), the durability and quality of objects produced by different means, and more. His ending chapter concludes the work with a call for more amateurs (understood in the traditional sense of people who love something), and the hopeful desire to see a workmanship of risk return, despite all the difficulties that are posed to craftsmanship in the industrial and economic context of contemporary Western society.
Overall, this is a readable and fascinating work that even the non-craftsman can appreciate and enjoy. For anyone investigating the nature of art and aesthetics, Pye’s work provides an invaluable perspective on some of the most concrete matters of the very material and processes whereby art and crafts are made. He may even convince you to pay the extra money for a quality dresser as opposed to the easy route through an IKEA store.
January 28, 2013
Some good stuff here, although much of it will seem a bit obvious to the experienced designer. I suspect that he thinks design means visual or industrial design, and would have a hard time accepting that most of these same principles also guide, for example, good software design. His comments on the use of computers are dated, but then he was a product of his time. My one objection to his philosophy is his separation of the aesthetic from utilitarian - they are not, in practice, that cleanly separable.
January 5, 2026
Very fascinating and actually quite logically articulated discussion of good workmanship (craft) as distinct from design. According to Pye (who was himself a furniture designer in the 50s and 60s), true craft has nothing to do with the thing being 'hand-made' or machine-made, and it doesn't matter whether the process is regularised or chaotically quirky. Instead, craft is a process that entails risk – where every detail could potentially go wrong and the fact that it doesn't, or does, is what makes the product a crafted object. I really like this framework of craft as a 'workmanship of risk' as opposed to the 'workmanship of certainty' that automated mass-production typically entails. However I think Pye places too much emphasis on the intention of the designer, and how the craftsperson should adhere to it. I would have liked to see more discussion of spontaneity and improvisation in the craft process (distinct from improvisation in the design process), and I suspect that would have actually strengthened Pye's broader argument about taking craft seriously in its own right.
Towards the end there's some very interesting critique of John Ruskin and William Morris (both of whom I've been reading recently) and the Arts and Crafts movement of the nineteenth century. Pye's main point here is that this medievalist ideal of hand-made crafts was articulated by people who were not actually craftspeople, and therefore assumed that all craftspeople should and could be artists making their own designs (Pye takes issue with this and debunks Ruskin's pre-capitalist hand-crafted fantasies with hilariously brutal realism).
Towards the end there's some very interesting critique of John Ruskin and William Morris (both of whom I've been reading recently) and the Arts and Crafts movement of the nineteenth century. Pye's main point here is that this medievalist ideal of hand-made crafts was articulated by people who were not actually craftspeople, and therefore assumed that all craftspeople should and could be artists making their own designs (Pye takes issue with this and debunks Ruskin's pre-capitalist hand-crafted fantasies with hilariously brutal realism).
January 29, 2024
more like 3.5 stars. some veeeery compelling bits that are wonderfully applicable to all forms of design<->workmanship (eg software building). but i’m not sure i’m convinced by the macro thesis…it all feels a little “here are the aesthetic and ‘life approach’ philosophies i ascribe to and here’s a theory i made up that proves why they are Correct.”
should probably spend more time thinking about this and/or revisit it at some point….
should probably spend more time thinking about this and/or revisit it at some point….
December 19, 2022
Oh dear. Our obviously felt the need to get something off his chest - precisely what that was is unclear. He creates terms and descriptions for the sake of it without any real justification. It is part polemic against the Arts and Crafts movement - specifically anti Ruskin and Morris. Whilst criticising their attitude to workmanship judged by his own focus of the final product he seems to miss entirely that Morris was concerned with the well-being ( mentally and physically) of the worker - concerned that the worker should have the opportunity to achieve some satisfaction from the work.
I got crosser as I read the book but came away feeling sad that someone so capable had become so embittered.
I got crosser as I read the book but came away feeling sad that someone so capable had become so embittered.
December 5, 2016
This book picks up where his Nature and Aesthetics of Design leaves off. This is a refreshing book, not only because of Pye's deep understanding of "hand" workmanship, but because of the lack of chauvinism toward machine production. Indeed many insights applicable to mass production are given in the course of the work. Pye discusses how design intent must be translated to workmanship, the relation of economy to workmanship, and the integrity of materials and craftsmanship. Is it possible to speak of craftsmanship in the arena of modern mass-production? Yes--read this book for a wonderful introduction to how.
January 14, 2026
One of those books that immediately propped open my brain and altered core principles, here on the act of creation; on building and the aesthetic tenets of craftsmanship.
Pye is writing in 1968, and many of the theories he develops here—on the “workmanship of risk” as opposed to the “workmanship of certainty”, on the value of multi-scale diversity to aesthetic quality, the undervalued criticality of surface finish, and the nature of craft vs industry—are evergreen philosophies that apply equally (or more!) almost 60 years later.
Stay for the passionate and contemptuous critique of Ruskin’s “On the Nature of Gothic” chapter from his Stones of Venice.
In his final chapter Pye describes a future where *The Crafts* are relegated to the narrow intersection of amateur-produced, expensive, finely made, low-volume goods dwarfed by the industrial production of cheap low-quality products that serve the same function. This is flatly true, though both ends of the spectrum are pushed to extremes. He couldn’t have imagined the current zenith of offshored and automated manufacturing. On the former I think he was directionally correct, but missed a few key developments that have fostered the thriving artisanal industries we see in 2026.
To take one example: this is the age of the greatest knife making in human history. It is also the age of the shittiest industrial knife making in human history. But that industrialization democratized access to high-quality materials, tools, and material science—all leveraged by the determined individual craftsperson—and force multiplied by global market access via the internet and social media. Access to digital production workflows and affordable “prosumer” tools have created a scalable hybrid between the workmanship of risk and certainty which benefits the individual craftsperson.
It’s a wonderful time to build things in the world.
A few incredible sections:
“Just as the achievements of modern invention have popularly been attributed to scientists instead of to the engineers who have so often been responsible for them, so the qualities and attractions which our environment gets from its workmanship are almost invariably attributed to design. […]
'Good material' is a myth. English walnut is not good material. Most of the tree is leaf-mould and firewood. It is only because of workmanlike felling and converting and drying and selection and machining and setting out and cutting and fitting and assembly and finishing—particularly finishing—that a very small proportion of the tree comes to be thought of as good material; not because a designer has specified English walnut. Many people seeing a hundred pounds worth of it in a London timber yard would mistake it for rubbish, and in fact a good half of it would be: would have to be.”
“The element of risk is no figure of speech. In such a trade as the blacksmith's the critical moments are also dramatic, as anyone must agree who has watched a fire-weld being made. As the iron comes to the heat the fire roars, the fan hums and the smith stands silent. Suddenly, like an irrupting comet the iron is swept white-hot out of the fire on to the anvil, with scale spattering from it in a blinding shower, and three decisive hammer blows have made the weld. Or not! The timing and control of those movements have decided whether the weld is sound. Many lives on many occasions must have depended on their timing in forging the ironwork for sailing ships. A 'cold shut’ or a weld with dirt in it could remain undetected for years and then perhaps bring down a mast, or, if in an anchor, put a ship ashore.”
“Precision and regularity symbolize mastery. The Pyramids are a witness that unadorned precision alone will convey majesty if the scale is large enough.
This reverence for precision had, I think, two explanations. […] The second, and I believe deeper, reason lay in the opposition of art to nature. The natural world can seem beautiful and friendly only when you are stronger than it, and no longer compelled with incessant labour to wring your livelihood out of it. If you are, you will be in awe of it and will propitiate it; but you will find great consolation in things which speak only and specifically of man and exclude nature. When you turn to them you will have the feling a sailor has when he goes below at the end of his watch, having seen all the nature he wants for quite a while.”
“Again, consider the difference between the surface of an eggshell and sharkskin, a rose petal and velvet, ivory and soap, a peach and a baby's skin. We have few enough names for colours but for surface qualities all but none. Yet the variety of our experience of surface quality must be every bit as wide as that of colour.
The extreme paucity of names for surface qualities has quite probably had the effect of preventing any general understanding that they exist as a complete domain of aesthetic experience, a third estate in its own right, standing independently of form and colour. If that is not so, what is it that we see in black-and-white photographs? Nothing can ever be seen anywhere except surface; we can never see more of material things than that unless they are transparent or translucent. If a good black-and-white photograph did not exhibit surface quality, similarity of tone in it would imply similarity of material.
Surface quality in man-made things comes of workmanship. The third estate belongs to workmanship.”
Pye is writing in 1968, and many of the theories he develops here—on the “workmanship of risk” as opposed to the “workmanship of certainty”, on the value of multi-scale diversity to aesthetic quality, the undervalued criticality of surface finish, and the nature of craft vs industry—are evergreen philosophies that apply equally (or more!) almost 60 years later.
Stay for the passionate and contemptuous critique of Ruskin’s “On the Nature of Gothic” chapter from his Stones of Venice.
In his final chapter Pye describes a future where *The Crafts* are relegated to the narrow intersection of amateur-produced, expensive, finely made, low-volume goods dwarfed by the industrial production of cheap low-quality products that serve the same function. This is flatly true, though both ends of the spectrum are pushed to extremes. He couldn’t have imagined the current zenith of offshored and automated manufacturing. On the former I think he was directionally correct, but missed a few key developments that have fostered the thriving artisanal industries we see in 2026.
To take one example: this is the age of the greatest knife making in human history. It is also the age of the shittiest industrial knife making in human history. But that industrialization democratized access to high-quality materials, tools, and material science—all leveraged by the determined individual craftsperson—and force multiplied by global market access via the internet and social media. Access to digital production workflows and affordable “prosumer” tools have created a scalable hybrid between the workmanship of risk and certainty which benefits the individual craftsperson.
It’s a wonderful time to build things in the world.
A few incredible sections:
“Just as the achievements of modern invention have popularly been attributed to scientists instead of to the engineers who have so often been responsible for them, so the qualities and attractions which our environment gets from its workmanship are almost invariably attributed to design. […]
'Good material' is a myth. English walnut is not good material. Most of the tree is leaf-mould and firewood. It is only because of workmanlike felling and converting and drying and selection and machining and setting out and cutting and fitting and assembly and finishing—particularly finishing—that a very small proportion of the tree comes to be thought of as good material; not because a designer has specified English walnut. Many people seeing a hundred pounds worth of it in a London timber yard would mistake it for rubbish, and in fact a good half of it would be: would have to be.”
“The element of risk is no figure of speech. In such a trade as the blacksmith's the critical moments are also dramatic, as anyone must agree who has watched a fire-weld being made. As the iron comes to the heat the fire roars, the fan hums and the smith stands silent. Suddenly, like an irrupting comet the iron is swept white-hot out of the fire on to the anvil, with scale spattering from it in a blinding shower, and three decisive hammer blows have made the weld. Or not! The timing and control of those movements have decided whether the weld is sound. Many lives on many occasions must have depended on their timing in forging the ironwork for sailing ships. A 'cold shut’ or a weld with dirt in it could remain undetected for years and then perhaps bring down a mast, or, if in an anchor, put a ship ashore.”
“Precision and regularity symbolize mastery. The Pyramids are a witness that unadorned precision alone will convey majesty if the scale is large enough.
This reverence for precision had, I think, two explanations. […] The second, and I believe deeper, reason lay in the opposition of art to nature. The natural world can seem beautiful and friendly only when you are stronger than it, and no longer compelled with incessant labour to wring your livelihood out of it. If you are, you will be in awe of it and will propitiate it; but you will find great consolation in things which speak only and specifically of man and exclude nature. When you turn to them you will have the feling a sailor has when he goes below at the end of his watch, having seen all the nature he wants for quite a while.”
“Again, consider the difference between the surface of an eggshell and sharkskin, a rose petal and velvet, ivory and soap, a peach and a baby's skin. We have few enough names for colours but for surface qualities all but none. Yet the variety of our experience of surface quality must be every bit as wide as that of colour.
The extreme paucity of names for surface qualities has quite probably had the effect of preventing any general understanding that they exist as a complete domain of aesthetic experience, a third estate in its own right, standing independently of form and colour. If that is not so, what is it that we see in black-and-white photographs? Nothing can ever be seen anywhere except surface; we can never see more of material things than that unless they are transparent or translucent. If a good black-and-white photograph did not exhibit surface quality, similarity of tone in it would imply similarity of material.
Surface quality in man-made things comes of workmanship. The third estate belongs to workmanship.”
October 5, 2025
Leer este libro me hizo apreciar, más, el trabajo artístico y manual. No todo tiene que ser cuadrado y eficiente, las marcas y desvios hacen muchas de las cosas que tenemos alrededor más humanas al final del día.
December 17, 2025
pretty dense book but it helped to have the specific examples at the end (plates). It was interesting thinking about this idea of “diversification” of objects and I appreciated pye’s note about industry and craft co existing
May 4, 2024
Such a well-written book. It is a work of craftsmanship in itself and it’s perfectly clear why it’s one of the seminal writings on the topic.
August 4, 2024
2.5 stars. I had some good thoughts from this book, but it got very convoluted in places. If this hadn’t been for a class I wouldn’t have read it.
October 12, 2020
WARNING: The softcover print-on-demand version of the book is of the lowest quality. The layout is terrible and the plates are all washed out. I promise you will be holding the book up to your face and squinting at them. (I did actually get to handle a hardcover edition and can confirm that it does not have these problems.) I can't explain why they changed the layout for the softcover.
Problems with the physical book aside, I loved its contents! Pye's prose is thoughtful and fun to read. I would probably give this 5 stars if it weren't for some of the content at the end of the book being a bit ranty and less interesting.
Problems with the physical book aside, I loved its contents! Pye's prose is thoughtful and fun to read. I would probably give this 5 stars if it weren't for some of the content at the end of the book being a bit ranty and less interesting.
July 1, 2015
After having written a very negative review of Richard Sennett ' s book I felt that it was important to emphasize Pope's classic treatise on a trendy subject.
Unlike Sennett ' s view that all of us who desire to do good work can have "craftsman-ness"- Pye carefully in simple terms lays out the nature of practices that lead to craftsmanship. If you genuinely care, you must read, as carefully and respectfully as Pye gas written.
Unlike Sennett ' s view that all of us who desire to do good work can have "craftsman-ness"- Pye carefully in simple terms lays out the nature of practices that lead to craftsmanship. If you genuinely care, you must read, as carefully and respectfully as Pye gas written.
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