Page 136 - AIT0416_E-Paper

BÜRO UND VERWALTUNG • OFFICE BUILDINGS THEORIE • THEORY

Juliane Weber Helmut Kohls Büroleiterin am 25. Mai 1996 in ihrem Büro im Bundes - Gerhard Richter Einer der großen Künstler der Gegenwart am Arbeitstisch seines
kanzleramt – mit schreibtischfüllender Elefantensammlung. Kölner Ateliers am 11. August 2014.

as a stolen one: as a student, I found the lumber stored in the attic of the house where I people waiting for his words. In the latter case, the writer sits with his back to the visitor
lived as a lodger, and discovered a rather battered, but light-coloured and appealing and faces the wall. The wall can also have a picture window, which massively distracts
1920s desk. I did not want to let it wither and – first of all – could make good use of it. attention from one’s work. In prestigious offices, there are often large windows at a
So I inquired my way through the house: no owner was to be found. People assumed height affording magnificent views. However, the principal does not look to the outside.
that a former tenant or an unknown former owner of the house had forgotten the piece Instead, he looks into the room, and it’s the visitors who simultaneously look at him and
of furniture. I took the desk, moved house with it several times, had it restored – it beca- the target area: the big city, the full life, the bigger tomorrow.
me a friend. Just like its rightful owner, who several decades later saw his old desk in
my apartment and exclaimed: “I can’t believe it! That’s exactly the same desk as the one Workbenches of power and intellect
that has been swiped from my attic in 1968!” How embarrassing. However, as he was a
true friend, he listened to my confession with a chuckle. Among the writing rooms in The world we live in today, and almost everything that can happen to us in it, has been
this world, there are fortresses, playing fields, jewel cases, robbers’ caves, Bermuda tri- developed at desks. True, only very few of those sitting there writing were thinking of
angles. There are conformist and non conformist, autumn- and spring-like, coveted and the future, of the big picture; most were probably rather thinking of themselves and their
neglected, ascetic and sanguine, Spar tan and Athenian ones – there is a hardly manage- own progress – this is what people do most thoroughly, this is something they never get
able proliferation of different offices, their core very reliably being a desk. Let’s start with tired of doing, regardless whether he provides services, conceives products, advertises
the simplest aspect: there are large and small desks. The large ones allegedly raise their concepts or parties. In one way or the other, one always advertises oneself. For the search
owner’s readiness to take risks. Maybe they only reduce the owner’s fear because he for happiness and success, the desk is the linchpin. And it has been for many generati-
feels protected by such a stronghold. Mostly, the small ones are not small because they ons, a piece of furniture of enormous prestige. The plain piece in the teenager bedroom
are especially loved for it, but because there is no room for a larger one. There are desks is allied with all the other in history, at which theories, inventions, hymns and charges
at which people work, and there are the ones, which only look as if work is done there, have been created, where people have governed or worked on the overthrow of govern-
whereas it is only used to make telephone calls. Thirdly, there are desks, where definitely ments, or even whole systems. The battles of history were certainly often fought with
no work is done at all. Here, all pencils are freshly sharpened and pedantically arranged bayonets and cannons, but always with ink against ink, from desk to desk. Long enough,
in parallel lines, regardless from where you look at them. If this is additionally comple- democracy was nothing but a hot idea of revolutionaries. However, they eventually
mented with photographs, souvenirs, awards and statuettes so that work is practically fought trough, because their desks were in the majority. Around that time, photography
impossible, it’s a yesterday’s or retirement desk. Future desks are hard to recognise, in emerged. More and more mothers looked at photographs of their sons in offices and shed
most cases they are very messy. The fact that desks are either packed or empty has not- a tear of joy. “He has made it. Look at his desk!“ More “breakthroughs” for mankind have
hing to do with the previously mentioned characteristics, because an empty desk is fre- been achieved at desks and bureaus than in battles, where this term comes from,
quently empty because a lot of work is done, while a full one is full, because little work through papers and texts, which seemed true and right to their readers. Frequently, the
is done. What is the relationship between desk and world? There is, similar to the two concepts were about freedom – freedom from the old, freedom from the new, freedom
sides of the moon, the type facing the earth and the type turned away from the earth. In from everything what brought no joy anymore. One of the oldest desk wars is the one
the first case, the person, maybe a principal, faces the room and looks into the eyes of between power and intellect. This is complicated. The lines of battle are blurred, one

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