Shifting Baselines

Do you ever wonder were the term “Craftsman Home” came
from? If you look at what passes for Craftsman Homes
nowadays you have to think, where’s the craft? Maybe you
throw some shingles on a wall. Or you lay in some bricks
over there and that’s a Craftsman Home right?

Shifting
baselines is a term many of you may not have heard of.
Daniel Pauly first elucidated the idea of shifting
baselines in a 1995 Trends in Ecology and Evolution paper.
He wrote about the gradual accommodation of the
disappearance of fish species, how each generation of
fishers and marine scientists assumed that the current
population of fish was the norm. What those fishers and
scientists didn’t know is what they assumed was normal was
already tampered with. We, in the age of instant
gratification, have forgotten that there were once real
Craftsman
Homes to be had.

Now I’m not accusing anyone of pulling a
bait and switch when they sell a newly built “Craftsman
Home”. There are plenty of real nice craftsman “style”
homes out there. But I know what real craftsmen can do and
they ain’t it! There’s a real art to any craft. Yes, you
and I could be crafty, go down to the hardware store, and
grab a gallon of paint, sling it around our living room
and it’d be passable. I’m not talking about passable. I’m
talking about what’s possible. I’m talking about a real
baseline.

Now I’m not saying you should pay Leonardo to
come paint the Last Supper on your wall, I’m talking about
having a pro ply his/her craft to a job and make it look
artful. If ever there was a work of art that you could
live in, it’s the Gamble House in Pasadena California. In
1911, with their attention to detail, their knowledge of
their craft and their eye for the artful, the Green
brothers, who were the architects, and the craftsmen they
hired, created a work of art rivaling anything ever hung
on
a wall.

Light hanging on the Gamble House in Pasadena, California.

Speaking of hanging stuff on walls, I submit these two
photos as evidence for their attention to detail. If you
look close at the photo of the handing light, look at the
bolts on the wall. If you’ll notice first these are real
lag bolts that are holding that light up. Not just a nice
detail someone glued on. Keep looking. Notice that the
bolts are precisely laid out to create symmetry. Keep
looking. Did you see that the heads on those bolts are
square? Did you notice that they are all turned so the
flat sides are all perfectly level with each of the
others? That’s just four bolts holding the light by the
front door up. Are you starting to see what I mean when I
say attention to detail?

Take a look at the door next. Did
you notice the wood it was constructed of? If you can’t
tell, that’s tiger maple. In case you didn’t know tiger
maple is so rare it is usually reserved for building
furniture and instruments. Les Paul was famous for using
tiger maple in the bodies of his guitars.

A tiger maple door.

That’s not a veneer on that door. That’s full
dimension tiger maple through and through. Now take
another look at the door. If this won’t blow your mind, I
don’t know what will. That is an outside door! Is it the
front door where all our guests will see? Or is it the
back door, where we might be entertaining on the deck or
patio and everyone will notice? It’s an insignificant side
door leading to a small study, where mainly only the
tenant of the study may see it. It should beg the
question, if they spent that kind of time on an
insignificant side door, what do the things that really
count look like?
The Green Brothers were known for their impact on the arts
and crafts movement in design. The term ‘bringing the
outdoors in’ is batted around a lot. I think it falls
short
of what they accomplished. Saying the Greens brought the
outdoors in is like saying ‘Picasso painted stuff.’

Charles
and Henry Green were architects with degrees from MIT.
Some might say that it’s no surprise they did so well
with an education like that. However, I submit that it
wasn’t MIT degrees that made these men, it was their
childhood. Their father, a doctor, demanded that they
learn a trade of some sort. Even though it was a forgone
conclusion that they would go on to school, their father
said when society goes to hell, the first to the gallows
are the academics and artists. Lucky for us they chose the
building trades. They arrived at MIT as journeymen crafts
men. And it was that, that set them and their work in
architecture apart.

The staircase in the entry hall at the Gamble House in Pasadena, California.

This staircase in the entry hall says it all for me. This
photo doesn’t do it justice. The Greens used form
and function and lifted the space we live in to something
ethereal. Like living in a fine instrument, no sour notes.
The
way the hand rail flows with the steps, those handrails
cut from a single piece of wood, the steps jointed
together not just for strength, but for looks and symmetry
as well.

Take a close look at the whole structure of this
stair case. The treads of the steps, the railing, the
batons holding the railing up and if you didn’t see in
this photo, look at the upper right hand corner. There are
actually two 90 degree turns it makes before it hits the
top landing. Now think on this, not one nail. No glue. It
has had nothing but the art of the craftsman and his
knowledge of jointers to hold it all together for over one
hundred years.

It looks like it was finished yesterday. That’s real art.
That’s real craft. That’s a real baseline!