Office Interiors and the Fantasy of Information Work

Bibliographic Data

ID21187773
AuthorsR Hong (0000-0002-2126-0384, University of Southern California, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume15
Issue2
Pages540-562
Publication date2017-05-31
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuetripleC Communication Capitalism & Critique Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1726-670X • E-ISSN: 1726-670X
PublisherInformation Society Research (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.31269/triplec.v15i2.763
OpenAlexW2621229332
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited14

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