Office building

Office work has changed fundamentally since its beginnings. This change is reflected in the architecture. The diverse utilisation concepts - individual rooms, open-plan offices, multifunctional rooms, integrated leisure areas, inclusion of outdoor spaces on all levels, etc. - mean that the supposedly everyday building task is constantly being challenged. - This supposedly everyday building task is constantly being turned into a new challenge. With a selection of 50 office buildings from America, Europe and Asia, the editors present impressive functional and constructive innovations that have left their mark on their respective surroundings and, in some cases, on the course of architectural history. The examples, from the origins of office construction as an independent genre in Chicago in the late 19th century to the headquarters of today's global corporations, are each presented with photographs, plans and a detailed explanatory text. Five accompanying essays examine the historical, cultural, economic and urban transformations that take place and become visible in office architecture from various specialist perspectives.