| dc.description.abstract | Sociological inquiry has been mostly absent from the investigation of massproduced material goods, especially materials in the architectural arts. If sociology
takes as a subject social networks in modern society—one of whose chief
characteristics is mass production—then the “mutually determining” relationships
between the material results of mass-production and social networks should have
a central place in sociological study. Art worlds are constructed both by people and
the objects they work with: people make objects which, in turn, influence people in
an ongoing dialectic. By tracing aspects of architectural terra-cotta production
through the modern period, this paper demonstrates that the specific
investigation of a mass-produced art object, which is also a unique architectural
and sculptural material, both lends itself to particular social networks in its use and
creation and also brings greater richness to issues of sociological concern,
including the importance of how the object itself plays a role in social networks,
the exploration of architecture as art worlds, and the use of Becker’s “art worlds”
concept to study mass production. In doing so, this article contributes new aspects
of investigation to the study of art worlds, such as topics related to the roles of
geography, technology, finances, mass media, labor competition, fashion, identity,
durability and public safety, in combination with one another. | en_GB |
