Presumption and Allowing -- A Reflection on "Tending Building", by Kiel Moe and Daniel Friedman

In their excellent essay, “Tending Building” (Places Journal, February 2024, the second article in the series, ”Repair Manual”),  architects Kiel Moe and Daniel Friedman locate breakdowns in modern, Western architectural design in its insistence on imposing a vision that takes no account of the realities of the context and materials in which that vision is articulated.  They propose addressing breakdowns not with repairing or fixing them, but with an “ethics of tending” in design and maintenance.

I suggest that tending requires not just greater intellectual, political, and practical commitments, but also an underlying mindset — a reverence for the mystery before us, sensed now and then on the porch at West Point Inn.

Comments on "Make Maintainers: Engineering Education and an Ethics of Care", by Andrew L. Russell and Lee Vinsel

This terrific essay is for all of us, not just engineering academics. Through addressing shortcomings in engineering education programs, and recommending specific solutions, it illustrates how to structure a dimension of life within a holistic vision of caring for the general good, and the urgency of doing so.

After outlining the destructive effects of lionizing innovation in engineering education programs, the authors suggest an alternative set of values that are grounded in an ethics of care, illustrate how those values could be reflected in engineering programs’ structure and goals, and close with a compelling argument for the exigency of making those changes.

The import of the essay for engineering academics is obvious, and this non-engineer / non-academic won’t linger there, but will instead highlight the (likely unintended) bonus — the essay is for all of us.

The import for the general reader rests on three points:

The essay: 1) renders an ethics of care in accessible language in an accessible context, 2) is effectively a case study in how that theory can manifest on the ground; and 3) communicates the pressing need for a holistic vision of caring for the common good to shape how all of us structure and conduct our day-to-day lives.

Glancing the Surface

I suggest that an Inclination to Life is our deepest commonality, that repair is one of the main ways it shows up in our world, and that to the extent we’ve lost track of valuing repair, we’ve lost some measure of our humanity.

Etymology

repair (verb)

"to mend, put back in order," mid-14c., from Old French reparer "repair, mend" (12c.), from Latin reparare "restore, put back in order," from re- "again" (see re-) + parare "make ready, prepare" (from PIE root *pere- (1) "to produce, procure").

Etymology Online

fix (verb)

about 1370 fixen set (one’s eyes or mind) on something …; probably borrowed from Old French fixer, from fixe, fix fixed, from Latin fixus, past participle of figere to fix, fasten.

About 1500 fasten, setlle, assign; 1663 adjust, arrange, put in order;

American English 1737 mend, repair; 1790 tamper (e.g., with a jury)

Chambers Dictionary of Etymology 1988

 
 

For a thought-provoking exploration of many words in the repair realm, see Christine Byl’s “Notes on Repair” in The State of Repair, “Chatter Marks”, edited by Amy Meissner, pp 41 - 46.

A Comment on Politics

There is much agonizing these days (rightly so) over the pronounced and fiery partisanship of American politics. We hear this all the time. Occasionally we hear entreaties to find places of commonality where we can see and hear each other, and begin the hard work of addressing and resolving the great crises of our time.

I’ve often witnessed two people from distant points on the political spectrum meet in genuine respect for each other’s skills and knowledge as they work together through a tough repair. There’s a palpable sense of ease, pleasure, and respect. It’s exhilarating.

Repairing an object — “a wholesome point of commonality across space and time” — is brilliantly non-partisan.

Long Live Repair!

Comments on Shannon Mattern's "Step by Step - Thinking through and beyond the repair manual"

Earlier this year Places Journal published a thought-provoking essay by Shannon Mattern that examines the form, content, purpose and effect of the repair manual in its many manifestations over time. 

I’ve added it to this website’s Scholarship and Research page, but am compelled to say more than I usually do on that page. So I offer here a demi-synopsis / semi-review.

Reflection #1: Hootin' and Hollerin' ~ Care and Repair

The eruption of applause and hootin’ and hollerin’ at community repair events is spontaneous because we’ve witnessed and participated with others in affirming life, in hope manifesting not just in the object being repaired, but in that most fundamental inclination of the human heart —> engaging, connecting, relating intimately with others and with the material world we live in — in caring.

The life force of repair is hope.

The ground of repair is care.

Of course we celebrate!

Jane Hirshfield

“In whatever realm the artist’s discomfort arises, it tears open the fabric of psyche and universe, leaving a hole the creative impulse rushes than to repair…To participate in the creative renewal of the world is as close as we may come to touching the cloth of existence’s original daybreak.”

Ten Windows, pp.46-47.