Solid futures

office architecture and the labour imaginary

David Adler

pp. 299-319

in: Hannes Kramer, Matthias Wenzel (eds), How organizations manage the future, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Abstract

In organization studies, office architecture is mostly seen as an instrument for control and productivity. By taking into account the temporality of architecture within labour relations, an imagined dimension of the organization's built space comes to the fore. For a better understanding of this dimension, this chapter turns to architectural theory, especially Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project. Using an approach grounded in discourse analysis and ethnography, the chapter presents four dimensions in which office architecture relates to the future: (1) office architecture is discursively charged with promises; (2) it produces conflicting anticipations of the future; (3) architectural aspirations have to be performed locally; and (4) office architecture stages labour's inexhaustible potentiality. These dimensions imply that office architecture cannot be sufficiently understood only in terms of its functionality or instrumentality. Instead of simply assuring an objective technological rationalization, office architecture produces a shared imaginary of an ever more successful organization of labour.

Cited authors

Benjamin Walter