Back to the office
Most of us have gone back to the office, at least a few days a week. As we settle into the dullness of the commute, and the coffee run, and the obligatory how-was-your-weekend chat, it is perhaps comforting to examine these pictures of a very unusual office, printed in the sixth issue of Where Is The Cool?.
Designed in 1994 by Italian Architect Gaetano Pesce for the advertising agency Chiat/Day, when this multi-coloured, play-dough-like New-York office was unveiled it was hailed as the manifestation of a new era in post-industrial design. The concierge desk had a huge, bright-red pair of lips painted around it, and the sign for the men’s bathroom was a man physically peeing. More experimental still: there were no offices, no desks, and no personal equipment.
The idea was to free the worker’s minds, but the architecture actually had the opposite effect: it drove employees mad. One former employee described it as like “working inside a migraine” and by 1999, the agency was shattered after a series of mini-insurrections; people had started hiding laptops in an effort to snaffle equipment and setting up makeshift filing cabinets in the boots of their cars.
Other delights inside this issue include a series of classic ice cream coupes. Look very closely, and you will notice these puddings are painted, rather than photographed. Below are some of the most delectable spreads.
