Talk to the hand

Why bark when you have a dog? Or, indeed, draw when you have a computer? Or wield a saw when a machine can do the job with so much greater precision? In the design and manufacture of furniture—as in so many aspects of modern life—technology has rendered the human hand redundant. however, this progress comes at a cost; there’s an emotional connection between a hand and the tool it guides that will never exist between a silicon chip and a chisel. ‘If you spend just two minutes drawing, your brain talks to you in a different way,’ Lord Snowdon told Country Life earlier this year.

In British schools, there doesn’t appear to be much of this type of creative dialogue going on. The number of students taking GCSES in design and technology has plummeted and workshops at colleges and universities are closing at a similarly alarming rate. ‘So many of the designers we interview don’t know how to make stuff; design schools are expensive and computers are cheaper,’ Sir Jonathan Ive told Dezeen magazine. Sir Jonathan is no luddite: as the (British-trained) Chief Design Officer at Apple—the pioneer of mobile devices that have transformed modern life—he understands better than anyone that making stuff is fundamental to a creative process that is, according to government figures, worth almost £80 billion a year.

Good design isn’t ephemeral; it has a tangible benefit that improves the quality of our lives and creates employment for a plethora of different trades—often in parts of the country where jobs are thin on the ground.

Moreover, while there’s a gloomy belief that we’ve outsourced all our manufacturing to the Far East, the truth is that we still make things beautifully and profitably in Britain, from clothes and cars to furniture and buildings. For evidence, one doesn’t need to look further than the pages of this interiors special, which include plenty of examples of British-made furniture and accessories that will look as good in 100 years’ time as they do today.

With so much historic emphasis on building Britain’s role as a powerhouse of financial services—and a degree of sniffiness about vocational education—we now face a skills gap that the Government is aiming to plug by creating three million new apprenticeships by 2020. It’s a void that needs to be filled, not just with engineers and digital wizards, but also by those who understand how to design and make things that look beautiful, function effortlessly and won’t end up in landfill. Even in mass manufacture, that process begins with the human hand rather than a piece of software.

‘There’s an emotional connection between a hand and the tool it guides’