The production-line nature of much American office work in the early twentieth century resulted in the work-pool arrangement of clerical workers lined up in rows in large rooms. Mail-order firms, insurance companies and government agencies followed the Taylorist principles of splitting tasks into specific repetitive acts. These regimented spaces enabled an uninterrupted flow of work and close visual supervision by managers often having their own offices. The other economic gain derived from such a layout was that more desks could be fitted into open areas than cellular rooms.

It was Sullivan’s ex-employee, Frank Lloyd Wright, who first attempted to temper these harsh conditions. He had by this time developed his own visionary position informed by the social ideals of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement and a concern for the individual’s place in industrial society.

The Larkin Administration Building of 1904 in Buffalo, New York, was designed by Wright for a mail order soap company of 1,800 workers, and can be considered the first purpose-designed environment for a specific organisation. The cliff-like brick building was innovative in plan with all service spaces pulled to the corners leaving a large open space at the centre. To keep the interior space free from the pollution of passing New York trains the building was hermetically sealed and provided with one of the first primitive air-conditioning systems. Managers and clerks, many of them women, worked together in a single large space of galleries surrounding a central top-lit court, processing more than 5,000 orders per day. Views out were limited to glimpses of the sky creating an introverted sense of the company as a family dedicated to the ‘sacrament of work’, as emphasised by the salutary inscriptions on the galleries. Wright’s attention to detail extended to the design of the steel furniture, the first ‘system’ furniture and the built-in cabinets that lined the walls.

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