The office as an interior (1880-1960)

/ Termine

The office as an interior (1880-1960)

Veranstalter
Institute of Popular Culture Studies, University of Zurich and Swiss Federal Archives
Veranstaltungsort
Swiss Federal Archives, Archivstrasse 24, CH-3003 Bern
Ort
Bern
Land
Switzerland
Vom - Bis
17.10.2013 - 18.10.2013
Website
http://www.bar.admin.ch/aktuell/index.html?lang=de
Von
Nellen, Stefan

Today, employees can work anywhere where they have a laptop and access to WLAN. So the time is ripe for a history of the office: The conference «The office as an interior (1880-1960)» examines the emergence of a specialised yet universal space for administrative work at the end of the 19th century, and the social and cultural impact of that space.

Between the last decades of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century, the administrative work-space was fundamentally transformed. In the course of the 19th century «for the first time the living-space became distinguished from the place of work». The living-space «constituted itself as the interior», of which the private citizen required «that it should maintain him in his illusions» (Benjamin 1969/1935). While in the last decades of the century domestic space was still often used for administrative work, a specialised room began to develop at the beginning of the 20th century. The office became the universe of both public and private enterprise administration. At the same time, «the real centre of gravity of the sphere of existence was displaced to the office.» (Benjamin 1969/1935)

At this time, Taylorism hits (Taylor 1911) administrative work. The ideology of scientific management (Schulze 1913, Leffingwell 1918 and 1925, Galloway 1918, etc.) expanded to Europe, claiming to redesign space according to functional principles of rationalisation. However, the everyday practices of administrative work are at odds with the discourses of rationalisation, so that there is true simultaneity of non-simultaneousness: traditional offices exist next to offices decorated in a modern style, and small and medium-sized companies and public administrative bodies were still grappling with the postulates of rational office set-up in 1960.

The conference analyses the development of the office in order to analyse the interdependency between physical and social space, materiality and practices, strategies and tactics, structures and individuals. It addresses those figures, objects, practices, organisational forms and formats for knowledge that have given birth to and characterise the office as a space, and to analyse the interaction between the multiple factors which shape the set-up of offices: the material arrangements (light design, heat regulation, air quality, arrangement of furniture and machines, the movement of goods and people, etc.) as well as the immaterial apparatus (organisation of work, establishment of hierarchies, creating intimacy, regulations, representations etc.).

Programm

Thursday October 17 2013

09.15-09.30
Thomas Hengartner, Head of the Institute of Popular Culture Studies (IPK) – University of Zurich & Andreas Kellerhals, Director SFA: Reception

09.30-10.00
Gianenrico Bernasconi (IPK) & Stefan Nellen (SFA): Introduction

Medium

10.00-10.30
Susanne Jany (Berlin/Harvard): Das Amt als Prozessarchitektur. Über die räumlichen Bedingungen postalischer Verwaltungsarbeit

10.30-11.00
Till A. Heilmann (Basel): Der Raum der Textverarbeitung. Aufstieg und Fall des typing pool

11.00-11.30: Coffee break

11.30-12.00
Klara Löffler (Vienna): Die Schublade. Zur Mehrdeutigkeit der dienstbaren Dinge

12.00-12.30
Tobias Pfeifer-Helke (Dresden): Kennerschaft und Interieur. Max Lehrs, Hans W. Singer und das Ideal einer graphischen Sammlung um 1900

12.30-13.00
Conclusion I: Medium

13.00-14.00: Lunch

Representations

14.00-14.30
Sabine Biebl (Munich): «Wo wir sind, ist Büro». Das Büro in Literatur (und Film) zwischen 1840 bis 1931

14.30-15.00
Nicola Bishop (Lancaster): The Literary Office; or, «the muffled tragedy of a clerk’s life»

15.00-15.30
Lena Christolova (Konstanz): Ein Mann der Masse: Der Büroangestellte im Film «The Crowd» von King Vidor (USA 1928)

15.30-16.00: Coffee break

16.00-16.30
Hans-Georg von Arburg (Lausanne): Schreibraum Büro. Siegfried Kracauers Innenansichten der Moderne

16.30-17.00
Conclusion II: Representations

17.00-18.00
Imma Forino (Milan): Keynote lecture: The office as an apparatus of control: interior design and furniture, 1880-1960

18.00-19.00
Literary aperitif «Mit Robert Walser im Bureau» Stefan Suske (Bern/Graz) reads passages from Robert Walser’s work, organized by the Robert Walser-Center, Berne

Friday October 18 2013

Interior architecture

09.00-09.30
Adriana Kapsreiter (Berlin): Bürosaal – Groβraumbüro – Bürolandschaft: «Die Arbeit unseres Körpers und das Werk unserer Hände». Versuch einer Büro-Raumtheorie mit Blick auf Hannah Arendts «Vita activa»

09.30-10.00
Christine Schnaithmann (Berlin): Maschine, Kirche, Organismus. Die Gestaltung von Büroarbeit in Wrights Larkin Administration Building

10.00-10.30
Vera Klewitz (Wiesbaden): «Dienstraum eines Stadtbaurats» – Eine Bürogestaltung in Osnabrück durch Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart, 1927

10.30-11.00: Coffee Break

11.00-11.30
Andrés Avila (Bogotá): Architecture de bureaux à Bogota (1940-1960): l’influence et le rôle des agences d’architecture américaines

11.30-12.00
Bernd Kulawik (Zurich): Das Grossraumbüro und die kleine Kugel – Das USM Haller Möbelsystem vor dem Hintergrund der Stahlbausysteme und der Einführung des Grossraumbüros

12.00-12.30
Conclusion III: Interior architecture

12.30-13.30: Lunch

Knowledge and control

13.30-14.00
Thierry Pillon (Rouen): Les bureaux en France de 1909 à 1939: de l’hygiène au confort

14.00-14.30
Jens van de Maele (Ghent): «Vaste bureaux à cloisons vitrées, de manière à permettre un contrôle effectif». The government office in interwar Belgium

14.30-15.00
Conclusion IV: Knowledge and control

15.00-16.00
Delphine Gardey (Geneva): Concluding commentary

Kontakt

Stefan Nellen

Swiss Federal Archives
Archivstrasse 24, CH-3003 Berne

stefan.nellen@bar.admin.ch

http://www.bar.admin.ch/aktuell/index.html?lang=de