The 50 Ideas that Shaped Business Today

The open-plan office

The open-plan office has become an urban archetype, engrained in our consciousness – an ineluctable and inescapable element of modernity.

But there is nothing particularly modern about the idea. It originated towards the end of the 19th century, when construction technology using steel beams allowed architects to create big, column-free spaces. These became the clerical equivalent of the factory floor, with workers seated at rows of desks, overlooked by executives in enclosed, glazed offices.

Significant change came, perhaps surprisingly, in postwar Germany. Partly in reaction to the extreme order, surveillance and hierarchy of the Nazi regime, a new, more informal office design began to emerge. Quickborner, a consultancy ...