Immaterial Labour Poses New Challenges for Architecture

Throughout the 20th century, work life underwent fundamental changes. Factory production was increasingly replaced by the production of immaterial values. Since then, the physical and material work conditions have changed, and work for many people is no longer tied to a specific location or a specific time of day. With the computer and the telephone as the main tools of work, immaterial work can be carried out anywhere, any time.

Mobiles Büro. In 1969, the Austrian architect and designer Hans Hollein created a mobile office in the form of a plastic bubble. Inside, the individualised, nomadic worker could carry out immaterial work; simultaneously shielded from the outside and connected to it by telephone and telefax. Photographer unknown

Experimental Work Spaces


In the Ph.D. dissertation, which was defended on 20 April 2009 at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Andreas Rumpfhuber studies and analyses how this shift in work conditions was reflected in the experimental work by artists and architects exploring new ways of creating work spaces already in the 1960s. He has chosen six projects from the 1960s for an analysis of the way in which new trends in production methods were reflected in architecture.

Office Landscape Aspirations 


One of the case studies in the dissertation is the world’s first open-space office landscape, designed by the brothers Eberhardt and Wolfgang Schnelle in 1960-61 for the German media corporation Bertelsmann. This first office landscape was the size of half a soccer pitch. Andreas Rumpfhuber explains that this office landscape reflects two aspirations:
"On the one hand, the physical setting is intended to promote the efficient and flexible organisation of varying work processes. On the other hand, the setting aims to strike an intimate atmosphere that makes it a pleasant room to be and work in," he says.

Cybernetics in Architecture


These aspirations stem from so-called cybernetics of organisation, a scientific planning method from 1956 that defines a holistic approach to workplace organisation and design. This approach is anchored in the cybernetic theory of self-organising systems, natural as well as designed, whose parts interact through so-called feedback loops. Andreas Rumpfhuber explains,
"Architecture should reflect a specific idea about the sort of organisation we want to achieve. At the same time, architecture affects our potential for task organisation because it determines the physical setting. Based on cybernetics, architects develop a utopia which claims that the exchange between architecture and the organisation of immaterial labour can eventually create a society where work and leisure converge into one."

Bed-In. For one week in 1961, Yoko Ono and John Lennon turned a double bed in a room at the Queen Elisabeth Hotel in Montreal, Canada, into a work room. Their work was to market the message of world peace through the international media. The bed exemplifies the utopia of immaterial labour as ubiquitous. Photographer unknown

Perspectives for Future Research


Dag Petersson, associate professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture and the chairman of the examination committee, sees Andreas Rumpfhuber’s Ph.D. dissertation as offering an interesting link between architecture and changes in our work life.
"The dissertation provides a historically well-founded basis for studying the way we organise work conditions today, for example through architecture," he says.

Dag Petersson also emphasises that the dissertation points forward to analyses of the way in which physical settings affect relations between work and leisure in societies where the growing importance of immaterial work has made our work life less and less restricted in time and space. That raises the interesting question of how architecture will respond to the growing necessity for individuals to be able to switch repeatedly between private and professional roles throughout the day. In addition, there are political and ethical concerns about what happens when architects are given such a key role to play in defining the boundaries between work and leisure.

Cover photo: Buch und Ton. In the world’s first office landscape, designed in 1960-61 for the media corporation Bertelsmann, the goal was to achieve a combination of transparency, flexibility and intimacy. Movable room dividers and plants were to provide visual protection and indicate movement patterns and work areas for teams.
Photo: Quickborner Team