Literature Review

This review of the historical background has two starting points – the northern European tradition and the North American tradition. The northern European includes countries such as the Scandinavian countries, the former West-Germany and the Netherlands. The North American tradition includes countries such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the Pacific Rim cities such as Tokyo, Hong Kong etc. This division into two traditions comes from the British architect Francis Duffy (1999). The two traditions could just as well been called the low office building tradition and the tall office building tradition. The low applies to the north European tradition and the tall to the North American tradition. The latter definition emphasizes the architectural differences between the two traditions, whilst the former puts emphasis on the location and to some extent also the difference in organizational cultures and hierarchies that has influenced the architectural design of the office buildings.

OFFICE WORK THROUGH DIFFERENT PERIODS OF TIMES

The conditions have always been different between office work compared to work in production. These differences have been expressed differently through time, in terms of social status, salary, career opportunities and the physical work environment. The fact that administration and book keeping traditionally has been closely connected to the influen-tial and powerful people meant that clerks were, in old times, consistent with a higher position in society. Well-educated people from lower social classes often used the clerical profession as a springboard in their social careers. In the beginning of the industrial revolution the few clerks within firms worked in absolute closeness to the management.

This was manifested in the architectural design in offices, which often had detailed architectural work such as beautiful wooden panels on the walls, interior details in shiny brass and nicely full-lead cut glass...