Monday, 20 November 2023 (Venue: Maison Schuman, 21 Place Sainte Cunégonde, 1367 Luxembourg)
13.15: Welcome by Andreas Fickers (C²DH) and Martin Kohlrausch (Leuven); Introduction to the workshop theme and the ongoing research on office buildings at C²DH by Jens van de Maele (C²DH)
13.45: Negotiating the Vertical Bias of Capitalism: Using Information and Offices in Early 20th Century America.
Keynote by Craig Robertson (Associate Professor of Media Studies at Northeastern University, Boston, and author of the award-winning 2021 monograph The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information)
14.30: Session 1: Managerial Cultures (I) (Chair: Rika Devos, Brussels)
Building Better Worlds: CEOs, Their Visions and the Facilities They Provide for Their Workers
Ruth Baumeister (Aarhus)
The European Commission’s Office Space Between 1950s and 1960s: Building a European “Materialized Imaginary”
Marco Ninno (Leuven)
When Good Office Designs Go Bad: Labor Process Theory, the Scanlon Plan, and the Evolution of Herman Miller’s Action Office
Petra Seitz (London)
16.00: Coffee break
16.30: Session 2: Environmental and Psychological Aspects of Office Work (Chair: Fredie Floré, Leuven)
Managing Total Environments: Light, Sound and Focus in the Office, ca. 1970
Joeri Bruyninckx (Maastricht)
Permanent Spring? Bodily Negotiations of Climate Control in Tokyo Office Spaces
Tatsuja Mitsuda (Tokyo)
Surviving the Office: Workplace Design, Activism and the Health of Women Workers in Twentieth-Century Britain
Amy Thomas (Delft)
19.00: Dinner
Tuesday, 21 November 2023
09.30: Session 3: Managerial Cultures (II) (Chair: Stephanie Fransis, C²DH)
User Requests for Governmental Offices During the Portuguese Estado Novo, 1948-74
Ana Mehnert Pascoal (Lisbon)
The Paradoxes of Work Cultures in Modern Office Buildings in the Philippines
Philip Michael Paje (Manila)
From Taylorist to Dynamic Office Organization: Architectural Design Practice Learning from Office Management Methods. Some Cases From (Postwar) West Germany
Gernot Weckherlin (Dessau)
11.00: Coffee break
11.15: Session 4: Computers and Office Technologies After the 1960s (Chair: Andreas Fickers, C²DH)
The Computerized Office: Planning, Office Work and Visions for Technology, 1980-2000
Christiane Berth (Graz)
Measuring, Evaluating and Configuring: The Debate About Screen Work in West Germany From 1974 to 1996
Bernd Holtwick (Dortmund)
12.15: Concluding remarks by Rika Devos, Andreas Fickers, Fredie Floré and Martin Kohlrausch (Chair: Jens van de Maele)