Working in the Electronic Garden
The Visual Rhetoric of Herman Miller's Action Office
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4020317 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler (0000-0002-4993-3632, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 63 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 927-934 |
| Publication date | 2022-10-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Technology and Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0040-165X • E-ISSN: 1097-3729 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/tech.2022.0151 |
| PMID | 36341601 |
| OpenAlex | W4308317914 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
The image on the cover of this journal represents the intersection of two important architectural and technological changes to American offices in the 1970s: the growth of the open-plan office and the transformation of corporate computing. This advertising image shows how manufacturer Herman Miller promoted its Action Office furniture system as a means of facilitating and supporting these twin developments, portraying the modern office as a verdant electronic garden. Through a close reading of the imagery, the author argues that the representation of people, plants, computers, and furniture is designed to convey both the humanizing qualities of the open-plan concept and the system's technical and aesthetic aspects. The image is a rich primary source that reveals important aspects of the rhetoric of Herman Miller
Action (physics) · Aesthetics · Art · Intersection (aeronautics) · Linguistics · Miller · Plan (archaeology) · Political science · Politics · Reading (process) · Representation (politics) · Rhetoric · Sociology · Transport engineering · Visual arts · Architecture and Art History Studies · Architecture and Computational Design · Architecture, Modernity, and Design · Engineering · History · Law · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |