The Impact of Technology on Culture: A Case Study from Eric Gill
25 December 2007
“Up to the industrial revolution, as in Greece and Rome, however servile the condition of the labourer, he was at any rate a human being.
“And in the absence of miles of cheap drawing paper, architects, much against their wills no doubt, had to rely on the workmen as being possessed of a considerable deal of knowledge, initiative, sensibility, and responsibility.
“You had to leave a certain amount of responsibility to the workman simply because you couldn't draw everything out on paper.
“You couldn't draw everything simply because there wasn't paper enough.
“Rolls of ‘detail paper’ didn't exist!”
From: “Sculpture on Machine-Made Buildings”, 1936 (in It All Goes Together: Selected Essays by Eric Gill, 1944).
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