The Reconceptualization of the Craft Workshop in the Context of Small and Medium-Sized Industries

The reconceptualization of the craft workshop (SME) suggests a different positioning of craft practices and knowledge in the history of culture and industry. Peter the Great’s role was to build a bridge between the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century and the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century, and to combine scientific and practical knowledge, «sciences and arts». The structure of knowledge was the keynote of the time, from Peter and Leibniz to Lomonosov and the French encyclopedists. The authors conclude that the «sciences and arts» reforms were significant in their unity, which contributed to the combination of sciences and arts, and helped the latter to acquire a new quality. The two phenomena converged at the Academy of Arts and Sciences for something new to emerge from both, i.e. new science and new arts, at a higher technological and aesthetic level. After that, they diverged again to develop in their polysyllabic topologems at a higher level. The study employs the methods of social topology.

Peter I, St. Petersburg, Academy of Sciences, craft chambers, arts and sciences, scientists and craftsmen, craft workshop, SME, social topology