Ove Arup’s “Key Speech”

26th June 2007

A recent New Yorker article profiled Ove Arup, the engineering firm. It referred to the ‘key speech’ given by Arup in 1970 that set out the values of the firm. I tracked it down and was struck by how contemporary most of it sounds nearly 40 years later.

For example, here’s a bit of the intro that suggests he was reading lots of Schumacher and Fuller when he wrote this:

There are two ways of looking at the work you do to earn a living:
One is the way propounded by the late Henry Ford: Work is a necessary evil, but modern technology will reduce it to a minimum. Your life is your leisure lived in your free time.

The other is:
To make your work interesting and rewarding. You enjoy both your work and your leisure.
We opt uncompromisingly for the second way.

There are also two ways of looking at the pursuit of happiness:
One is to go straight for the things you fancy without restraints, that is, without considering anybody else besides yourself.

The other is:
to recognise that no man is an island, that our lives are inextricably mixed up with those of our fellow human beings, and that there can be no real happiness in isolation. Which leads to an attitude which would accord to others the rights claimed for oneself, which would accept certain moral or humanitarian restraints.
We, again, opt for the second way.

It’s worth a read, if only because forty years later Arup is a global firm that’s employee owned and working on some of the most interesting projects in the world. Download it from here.