Tower Cranes and Organization Studies

Martin Parker

doi:10.1177/0170840616663246

Abstract

This is a paper about different ways of revealing materials, and a theory of organization. It moves through a kaleidoscope of perspectives which reveal the tower crane as made through its relations with a series of different ways of seeing – engineering and mathematics, capitalist economics, and a workplace labour process. It employs a wide variety of sources, including some interviews that I have done with crane drivers. I then move into an account of the modernist fascination with technology, particularly Soviet constructivism. The latter provides the theoretical scaffolding which allows me to see the crane as a temporary stabilization of structure, and structure as an arrangement of planes and lines of force which allows certain moves just as it prevents others. This is a way of saying that an adequate understanding of ‘organization’ requires thinking multiples and relations. Nodding towards Deleuze and Guattari towards the end, I suggest that cranes are good to think with for these multiple purposes, but that any assemblage would do.

Highlights

This is a paper about different ways of revealing materials, and a theory of organization
It moves through a kaleidoscope of perspectives which reveal the tower crane as made through its relations with a series of different ways of seeing – engineering and mathematics, capitalist economics, and a workplace labour process
It employs a wide variety of sources, including some interviews that I have done with crane drivers

Summary

Manuscript ID

Tower cranes, materials, construction, socio-technical, Futurism, Constructivism This is a paper about different ways of revealing materials, and a theory of organization. It moves through a kaleidoscope of perspectives which reveal the tower crane as made through its relations with a series of different ways of seeing – engineering and mathematics, capitalist economics, and a workplace labour process. Like many words and their associated concepts, the etymology documents mutability - from sound to animal to machine to the human body. This is suggestive, because despite the solid clarity of their existence, cranes are curiously ephemeral objects, lacy sketches of lines which can disappear overnight, unnoticed, and materialise somewhere else a few days later.

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