Technology and Culture

abstract:

The image on the cover of this journal represents the intersection of two important architectural and technological changes to American offices in the 1970s: the growth of the open-plan office and the transformation of corporate computing. This advertising image shows how manufacturer Herman Miller promoted its Action Office furniture system as a means of facilitating and supporting these twin developments, portraying the modern office as a verdant electronic garden. Through a close reading of the imagery, the author argues that the representation of people, plants, computers, and furniture is designed to convey both the humanizing qualities of the open-plan concept and the system's technical and aesthetic aspects. The image is a rich primary source that reveals important aspects of the rhetoric of Herman Miller.