Office Interiors and the Fantasy of Information Work

Dados Bibliográficos

ID21187773
AutoresR Hong (0000-0002-2126-0384, University of Southern California, autor correspondente)
Ano2017
Volume15
Fascículo2
Páginas540-562
Data de publicação2017-05-31
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicotripleC Communication Capitalism & Critique Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1726-670X • E-ISSN: 1726-670X
EditoraInformation Society Research (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.31269/triplec.v15i2.763
OpenAlexW2621229332
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas14

This essay provides a historical context to the office interiors, describing its capacity to enchant the sphere of work and to transform the subjectivities of workers. Focusing on Florence Knoll and Robert Propst, American designers who contributed to the modern aesthetic in the postwar, I highlight how the sale of offices conveyed a fantasy of information work. Knoll and Propst had marketed their ideas using showrooms, textiles, seminars, and informational materials. These communicative practices emphasized the sensate quality of information work, which coached workers to recognize and interpret the visual, aural, and tactile quality of work environments. By doing so, it tied sensations of pleasure to the prospect of self-transformation, which provides basis for the modern attachment to beautified workspaces

Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Fantasy · Literature · Pleasure · Sociology · Visual arts · Architecture, Design, and Social History · Engineering · History · Philosophy · Psychology