Page 118 - AIT0422_E-Paper

BÜRO UND VERWALTUNG • OFFICE BUILDINGS THEORIE • THEORY

4. Centraal Beheer Building (1972) von Herman Hertzberger • 4. Centraal Beheer Building (1972) 5. Chiat Day / Binoculars Building (1991) von Frank Gehry • 5. Chiat Day / Binoculars Building (1991)

the population to suffer and puts pressure on society. Basic innovations to remedy ous, such as the Larkin Building from 1906, the Lever House from 1952 or the Chiat
this pressure emerge from this scarcity. The dissertation “The extreme type in office Day / Binoculars Building from 1991, brim with innovations, such as the first air con-
architecture. Its representatives in the changing world of work and the conditions ditioning system, the first pure curtain wall or the radically new working concept of
for its emergence.” investigates whether the emergence of new office architecture is the “virtual office”. Technological innovations were tried out and integrated as were
always preceded by a change in office work and whether it is linked to these inno- fundamentally new working concepts, all cast in a completely new design vocabu-
vation-driven economic cycles. Since architecture never emerges for its own sake lary. In contrast, the cases that have been typified as specific, such as the Johnson
and is always the product of the conditions, developments and influences surroun- Wax Building from 1936 or the Centraal Beheer Building from 1976, hardly show any
ding it, social-societal issues must be taken into account for a comprehensive under- architectural or use-oriented innovations. Instead, they are characterised by an out-
standing of the interrelationships, as must political contexts or economic develop- standing quality, especially in their interior design and the reflection of architectural
ments. Such an interdisciplinary approach achieved its objective in the dissertation: theory, and thus remain exemplary to this day.
five cases could be named as the most significant representatives of such extremely
typical office architectures: 1. Larkin Administration Building, US-Buffalo (1906, Social upheavals prompt new forms of architecture
Frank Lloyd Wright), 2. Johnson Wax Administration Building, US-Racine (1939,
Frank Lloyd Wright) 3. Lever House, US-New York (1952, SOM, Gordon Bunshaft) 4. The PhD thesis thus shows connections between social crises, the basic innovations
Centraal Beheer Building, NL-Apeldoorn (1972, Herman Hertzberger) 5. Chiat Day / generated and the emergence of new forms in office architecture over the last 120
Binoculars Building, US-Venice (1991, Frank Gehry). years. Their representatives can be assigned to the upturn and downturn phases of
the Kondratieff cycles. As fundamental research, these findings make a contribution
The two basic types of office architecture to understanding the transformation of office work. The results show that an inter-
disciplinary view can certainly find references for current developments. Thus, this
Based on this, two basic types could be formed using the method of type formation thesis points to a larger context: the hypothetical statement for our current position
according to Udo Kelle & Susann Kluge (2010) – the analysed case studies of office on an innovation-driven economic cycle. As a scientific work, it evaluates office ar-
architecture can be assigned to either the homogeneous or the specific type. Cases chitecture up to around 1990 from a purely retrospective point of view and assigns
of the homogeneous type show a very high level of innovation in almost all exami- them to the two types that have been formed. A typification of the Google Offices is
ned characteristics – from structural and design to social and societal. Cases of the not carried out due to their proximity in time. Nevertheless, it ventures a prognosis
specific type, on the other hand, lack this comprehensive innovation content but are based on the findings: the classification as a specific type following the Chiat Day
particularly pronounced in a few characteristics. Office architectures of this type are Building. This would be the indicator of our current position at the low point of an
often extraordinarily consistent in their design quality. This is the first time that a economic cycle. The corona crisis, the climate crisis and the drastic political crises
type classification has been developed for the field of office architecture and verified all form part of an overall structure here. With its examined cases, the PhD thesis
by the case analyses. The context of these findings becomes clear as soon as the shows that office work and office architectures have repeatedly changed as a result
years of construction of the cases thus classified are placed on the curves of the Kon- of innovations. This can be applied to our current situation. The hypothesis is: A
dratieff cycles. It becomes apparent that the cases assigned to the homogeneous type basic innovation will be found that will bring about many others. After that, soluti-
are more likely to be on the upswing of an economic cycle, whereas the cases assi- ons for office architecture will evolve. A new homogeneous extreme type will
gned to the specific type are more likely to be on the downswing of a cycle. When emerge, which will become a role model, attract a lot of attention and leave its mark
a basic innovation and thus an upswing occurs at the beginning of an economic on its time. Perhaps this time it will no longer be a building in the physical sense.
cycle, this has an impact on many areas of society. New technologies are developed, With the corona pandemic, a crisis occurs that will probably be considered a turning
new social concepts, many questions have to be answered anew. This has a corre- point. Designing this turning point in terms of effective office architecture can only
sponding effect on office architecture: emerging new work concepts have to be im- be solved as an interdisciplinary task. Thus conceived, the dissertation works at the
plemented spatially, new technologies are integrated experimentally. In a downturn, interfaces of architecture, interior design, empirical social research and economics,
on the other hand, innovations are no longer available. Everything is already known thus already showing possible courses of action and methods for an interdiscipli-
and tested, the innovative and experimental part decreases. Instead, there is now nary approach to the development of office architecture.
room for freestyle: in these phases, the design quality of spaces can be raised to out-
standing levels. Both extreme types with their respective real representatives in both
phases lead to a high level of attention due to their innovation or uniqueness. These
Abbildungen: Der Extremtypus in der Büroarchitektur. Seine Repräsentanten im Wandel der Arbeitswelt und die Bedingungen für ihr Entstehen von
correlations can be seen in the examples studied. The cases typified as homogene- Prof. Dr. Tanja Remke, Fakultät der Architektur und Landschaft der Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover, 2021
118 • AIT 4.2022