Has COVID-19 ushered in the end of the office? Or is it the office's
final triumph?
For decades, futurologists have prophesied a boundaryless working
world, freed from the cramped confines of the office. During the
COVID-19 crisis, employees around the globe got a taste of it. Confined
by lockdown to their homes, they met, mingled, collaborated, and created
electronically. At length, they returned to something approaching
normality. Or had they glimpsed the normal to come?
In The Momentous, Uneventful Day, Gideon Haigh reflects on our
ambivalent relationship to office work and office life, how we ended up
with the offices we have, how they have reflected our best and worst
instincts, and how these might be affected by a world in a time of
contagion. Like the factory in the nineteenth century, the office was
the characteristic building form of the twentieth, reshaping our cities,
redirecting our lives. We all have a stake in how it will change in the
twenty-first.
Enlivened by copious citations from literature, film, memoir, and
corporate history, and interspersed with relevant images, The
Momentous, Uneventful Day is the ideal companion for a lively current
debate about the role offices will play in the future.