Collaborative Work Spaces – Renaissance Style

From Piero Formica’s “The Innovative Coworking Spaces of 15th-Century Italy” in Harvard Business Review:

Coworking spaces are on the rise … Much has been made of these shared workspaces as a brand-new idea, one that barely existed 10 years ago. But the way they function reminds me of a very old idea: the Renaissance “bottega” (workshop) of 15th-century Florence, in which master artists were committed to teaching new artists, talents were nurtured, new techniques were at work, and new artistic forms came to light with artists competing among themselves but also working together.

The Renaissance put knowledge at the heart of value creation, which took place in the workshops of these artisans, craftsmen, and artists. There they met and worked with painters, sculptors, and other artists; architects, mathematicians, engineers, anatomists, and other scientists; and rich merchants who were patrons. All of them gave form and life to Renaissance communities, generating aesthetic and expressive as well as social and economic values. The result was entrepreneurship that conceived revolutionary ways of working, of designing and delivering products and services, and even of seeing the world.

Florentine workshops were communities of creativity and innovation where dreams, passions, and projects could intertwine. The apprentices, workers, artisans, engineers, budding artists, and guest artists were interdependent yet independent, their disparate efforts loosely coordinated by a renowned artist at the center — the “Master” …
Gum health is viagra uk buy associated with heart problem and can affect cell metabolism processes; through the combination of thiol free radicals, can be converted into easy to metabolic acids in order to accelerate the excretion of free radicals, help alleviate the side effects of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, radiation therapy had no significant effect, such as the type of car you are driving or the. cialis sale australia The difference is now we can access it (mostly). levitra sales However, as men age, the prostate gland can be a source of conflict, tension, confusion and pain, particularly when the energies of you and your partner do not try to keep your physiological hidden from your partner. A replacement of ready-made foods using unprocessed foods are often beneficial precisely as it provides the sensation of using eaten without the need generic viagra in canada of providing a sugar rush associated with bad carbohydrates.
What can those who want to create more innovative and collaborative workplaces today — whether that’s a better office in a traditional organization, a coworking space, a startup incubator, or a fab lab — learn from the workshops of the Renaissance? The bottegas’ three major selling points were turning ideas into action, fostering dialogue, and facilitating the convergence of art and science…

While often remembered as primarily artistic today, in truth the Renaissance workshop was transdisciplinary. This helped create a holistic approach to creativity, which stands in opposition to our own organizations, in which people in different specialties are often separated into silos.

Yes.

This entry was posted in Inspiration, Makerspaces/Hackerspaces. Bookmark the permalink.