Inside a Steinway Piano Factory
At the Steinway factory in Astoria, Queens, a piano rim is bent from eighteen layers of maple by six workers in twenty minutes before the adhesive sets.
Marcus Wei · 2024-12-08
Craft
Artisanal traditions, maker culture, and the handmade.
Showing 121–140 of 167 articles
Why Some Fabrics Last Decades While Others Fall Apart in Months
A Harris Tweed jacket purchased in 1970 remains wearable today.
James Alderton · 2024-12-07
How to Tell Real Craftsmanship from Marketing Copy
The word handcrafted appears on products from seven-thousand-pound watches to seven-pound candles.
Daniel Hurst · 2024-12-07
How Japanese Selvedge Denim Is Woven on Vintage Looms
The Toyoda GL-3 shuttle loom from the 1950s weaves denim at approximately seventy-five centimetres wide.
Marcus Wei · 2024-12-06
The Last Hatmakers of the Western World
At Lock and Co.
Sebastian Cole · 2024-12-06
Inside a Tuscan Tannery: How Vegetable-Tanned Leather Is Made
At the Badalassi Carlo tannery in San Miniato, Tuscany, raw cowhides hang in pits filled with chestnut bark liquor dark as espresso.
Daniel Hurst · 2024-12-05
The Art of Hand-Engraving on Metal
At Marcus Hunt's workshop in the English Midlands, a steel graver is pushed across a shotgun receiver, removing a fine curl of metal to create lines of microscopic precision.
Oliver Ramsey · 2024-12-05
How Eyeglass Frames Are Made by Hand in Jura, France
In Morez, population five thousand, in the Jura mountains near the Swiss border, spectacle-making dates to 1796 when a nail-maker bent wire into a frame.
Catherine Avery · 2024-12-04
The Revival of American-Made Workwear
In the 1990s, American workwear manufacturing appeared terminal.
Sebastian Cole · 2024-12-04
The Craft of Bookbinding in the Digital Era
At Shepherds Bookbinders in London, a craftsman applies gold leaf to a leather spine using heated brass tools.
Thomas Nakamura · 2024-12-03
Why the Best Wool Still Comes from Specific Farms
The Saxon Merino sheep of Tasmania's Midlands produce fleece averaging fifteen microns, among the world's finest.
Sebastian Cole · 2024-12-03
Inside a Japanese Pottery Studio: Wabi-Sabi in Practice
At the Raku family workshop in Kyoto, where the fifteenth generation continues a tradition from the sixteenth century, tea bowls are shaped without a wheel.
Thomas Nakamura · 2024-12-02
How Whiskey Barrels Get a Second Life
At the Speyside Cooperage in Craigellachie, Scotland, master coopers repair approximately a hundred thousand casks per year.
Marcus Wei · 2024-12-02
Why Heritage Brands Survive While Trends Disappear
Barbour has been making waxed cotton jackets in South Shields since 1894.
Daniel Hurst · 2024-12-01
The Difference Between Machine-Made and Hand-Welted Shoes
The hand-welted shoe and machine-made shoe may look similar on a shelf, but construction methods produce fundamentally different objects.
Catherine Avery · 2024-12-01
How a Handmade Knife Gets Its Edge
At Bob Kramer's studio in Olympia, Washington, a billet of Damascus steel forged from over three hundred alternating layers of high-carbon and nickel steel glows orange at nine hundred degrees.
Catherine Avery · 2024-11-30
The Last Great Umbrella Makers of London
James Smith and Sons has occupied the same corner of New Oxford Street since 1857.
William Ashford · 2024-11-30
The Architecture of Lisbon's Tiled Facades
Lisbon is the only European capital where azulejos, hand-painted ceramic tiles, cover entire building facades from pavement to roofline.
Sebastian Cole · 2024-11-29
The Architecture of Mexico City's Mid-Century Gems
Luis Barragan's Casa Estudio, completed in 1948 in Tacubaya, uses raw concrete, volcanic stone, and walls of saturated colour, including his signature hot pink, to create spaces of extraordinary spiritual calm.
Catherine Avery · 2024-11-29
The Architecture of New York's Art Deco Towers
The Chrysler Building, completed in 1930, remains the most exuberant expression of Art Deco ambition.
James Alderton · 2024-11-28