Rationalizing Technical Work
Visions and Realities of the "Systematic Drawing Office" in Sweden, 1890-1940
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4025313 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Boel Berner (0000-0003-3542-4180, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2007 |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 20-42 |
| Publication date | 2007-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Technology and Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0040-165X • E-ISSN: 1097-3729 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/tech.2007.0002 |
| OpenAlex | W1976116892 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 13 |
This article discusses the efforts within the Swedish engineering industry in the early decades of the twentieth century to rationalize the work of producing drawings and designs. The aim was to create a "systematic drawing office," with efficient internal organization and practices, that would play a leading role in guiding production on the shop floor. Modernizing managers and engineers were inspired by US examples; German contacts and collaboration were also important. The article discusses changes in the everyday work practices of designers and draftsmen, with a special focus on their technical and conceptual tools of the trade. It also traces the resistances and contradictions involved when managers tried to systematize the messy practices of drawing office work, both within the drawing office itself and in relation to workers on the shop floor. Thus, it gives a picture of how early twentieth-century visions of industrial modernization were (and were not) translated into everyday realities of the workplace
Economics · Engineering ethics · German · Management · Modernization theory · Political science · Public relations · Relation (database) · Sociology · Vision · Work (physics) · Architecture, Design, and Social History · Computer Science · Design Education and Practice · Engineering · Historical Architecture and Urbanism · History · Law · Mechanical Engineering
On line and on paper
What Engineers Know and How They Know It
The Mind's Eye: Nonverbal Thought in Technology
Foreign trade and the breakthrough of the engineering industry in Sweden 1890–1920
The worker's dream of becoming an engineer
Americanism, taylorism and social integration
Degrees of Freedom
A History of Engineering Drawing
Engineering Drawing-a Universal Language in Two Dialects
Representation and Power
To See How Things Were Done in a Big Way
Design Plans, Working Drawings, National Styles
Engineering Labour
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,18 |
| Citation span | 2009 - 2016 (8) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |