Patternmaker: Peter Morenstein, San Francisco
The Craft behind Architectural Hardware
Whether it is called Builders’ or Decorative Hardware, Architectural Hardware starts with a consummate artisan, celebrated in 1945 by Edward Leslie, a pattern maker working in Oakland, California.
“A pattern maker is an exalted craftsman, the greatest common denominator, as well as the least common multiple of all industrial production. A pattern maker must have the creative conception of a draughtsman designer, the practical ability of a molder, the precise skill of a machinist, the analytical judgment of a metallurgist and the specific exactness of a mathematician. He must create a plan, or design, with vision and ingenuity and build the idea from trade to trade with practical knowledge: thinking and forming inside and out with length, breadth and thickness, adjusting accurately all values and dimensions and producing with dexterous finality any conceivable form to be cast in metal.”