Craft Work

Peter G. Rowe, in his treatise Civic Realism, describes a good civic work to be dependent not only on the manifestation of the familiar, the pluralistic and the critical, but is also “inextricably bound up with the continual advancement of the expressive means by which it is made and elaborated.” The strength of Cardew’s work on purely urban grounds–the resonance each project develops with the given environment through a profound understanding of the social and cultural aspirations of the communities it both serves and neighbours–is undeniable. But just as apparent throughout the portfolio is an indelible trace of material and structural imperatives, which seem to inform the work in equal measure to his very evident social objectives. So to view this body of work in an isolated fashion from a theoretical construct regarding society or from an equally isolated position of the relevance of making to design is to fail to grasp the totality of the work. The two forums, that of social theory and that of making, are here inexorably linked and interdependent–a truly civic body of work.