Domestic Imprints: Florence Knoll and the role of domesticity in the early post-war american office
A. Giagkou (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
Jurjen Zeinstra – Mentor (TU Delft - Situated Architecture)
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Abstract
The early 20th century office was strongly affected by the Taylor’s ideas on people’s productivity. Office workers were closely treated like machine parts conducting specific activities of the “production line”. The architectural space was designed as to increase the workers’ productivity and it was molded by the new subjectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit). However, by the end of the second world war emerged a foreground for more humanized environments. Architects, such as Florence Knoll, played a predominant role on the humanization of the corporate environment and the democratization of space. The subject of this thesis is to investigate the role that domesticity played towards the humanization of the corporate environment through the work of Florence Knoll Bassett. Departing from her drawing of the conference room, the thesis pursues to reveal the aspirations derived from the domestic narrative in the design of corporate spaces during the early post-war period in the United States.