Working in architectural design, I meet many different kinds of craftspeople. At any construction site, large or small, there are usually one or two people capable of playing a leading role.^（注1） Meeting such people is one of the pleasures of visiting a construction site. When you spend long periods dealing only with drawings, your thinking can easily detach itself from reality and take on a life of its own. At such times, you realize how irreplaceable the information they provide is.^（注2） The drawings we create are nothing more than abstract symbols represented by lines. They, on the other hand, actually touch the materials. They possess deep, reliable information that is close to the physical materials themselves and supported by rules derived from experience.

A drawing is something created solely in the human mind. To turn it into an actual building, information obtained directly by hand from materials such as wood, steel, and concrete is indispensable. This is because things produced in the mind are often mistaken due to assumptions and errors in judgment. Today is the age of computers and information and communication technology. Along with this, opportunities to work with our hands are steadily decreasing. Even in architectural design, the shift toward CAD (computer-aided design) has been tremendous. However, such drawings make it difficult to grasp the design as a whole. They are too clean, making everything look as though it is going perfectly well. This is probably because the work is completed entirely in the mind without passing through the hands.

Traditional drawings laboriously made in pencil on tracing paper contain the emotions of the person who drew them.^{（注3）（注4）} Areas that do not work are erased and redrawn for correction. The more technically problematic or poorly designed an area is, the more the lines become smudged and the tracing paper becomes soiled by oils from the drafter's hands. Areas redrawn many times may eventually wear through until a hole forms in the paper.

If the person who drew it lacks confidence, that hesitation can even be seen in the pencil lines. With experience, one can even infer the drafter's level of expertise and personality from the lines on the drawing. Hand-drawn plans contain many kinds of valuable information that are hard to give up. With CAD, because the person behind the uniform-looking drawing is harder to see, there is also a risk of overlooking major problems.

The emergence of computers, which are far removed from the hands, has made it increasingly difficult for traditional experience-based methods to sense where risks lie. This is probably not limited to design. Information and communication technology and computers have now penetrated every field and are transforming society as a whole. Things produced by the mind are running out of control. The location and nature of risks are becoming larger in scale and harder to see.

Somewhere along the way, we need to bring them back to the side of flesh-and-blood human beings. Information obtained through the hands is inefficient, but it is gained by directly feeling one's way through the real world.^（注5） It can be called information unique to and residing only in that person's own body. We should perhaps think about what place remains for the hands that are gradually being forgotten.

(From Naito Hiroshi, “Toward the Beginnings of Architecture”)

(Note 1) shuyaku o haru: here, to play a major role

(Note 2) kakegae no nai: so valuable that nothing else can replace it

(Note 3) tracing paper: here, paper used for drawing design plans

(Note 4) kyurai no: traditional; existing from long ago

(Note 5) masaguru: to feel or grope one's way with the hands