The Great Workroom
The interior of the Great Workroom was over a half-acre of open space that contained 60, twenty one foot high columns with capitals shaped like giant lily-pads over 18 feet in diameter (on top), there were 43 miles of Pyrex glass used for the windows, open circular bird cage elevators for panoramic views, rolling carts, 40 different styles of task furniture and 200 uniquely designed bricks to accommodate the curvature of the exterior.

In The Great Workroom showed Wright’s emergence as one of the leading modernists of his day. He influenced many students at the Bauhaus and in turn was subtlety shaped by the movement himself – a mutualistic symbiosis.

Fast Forward to the 1950’s
In 1958 the true open-office-plan as we know it today was born in Germany by two brothers, Eberhard and Wolfgang Schnelle. Their burolandschaft (open office) had no partitions or offices. They believed this plan would foster more communication and camaraderie between managers and employees. The space was also decorated with green plants adding a touch of nature. The open-office-plan concept really took off in 1968 when Hermann Miller invented the office cubicles known as the Action Office.

Variations on a Theme
In the 1980’s, hot-desking became popular, i.e. there were no assigned desks and each day workers would choose their desks from whatever was available. In the 1990’s many tech firms in New York, San Francisco and a few other cities chose large lofts as a starting point for their open-office-plans.

The 2000’s saw the development of coworking spaces, where workers from different firms would share spaces. When the pandemic hit in 2020, many workers started to work remotely from home. Today most workers prefer not to return to the noise, lack of privacy and inefficiency of the open plan.

No Elysian Fields
The open-office-plan was touted to facilitate and encourage productive cooperation, sharing of ideas, and making new friendships. However it did just the opposite. As productivity started to wane, many tech companies started adding perks such as planned adventure trips, office games, nap stations and free meals – this further lessened productivity resulting in significant net losses.

The Real Reason Management Prefers Open-Office-Plans
#1. it is less expensive than building individual offices – BY FAR,
#2. Many managers like watching employees to ensure they are not online playing games, on facebook or raking up hours on the phone instead of working. Workers genuinely loathe the open-office-plan but pretend to be onboard. Of course being a new hire in the middle of a recession, no one wants to rock the boat by demanding a private office.

The Open-Plan in Japan – Karoshi – Death by Overwork
In Japan (and several other Asian countries), the open-office-plan is particularly popular because managers and bosses are control freaks. They often hover close to or over their workers, producing severe psychogical stress. Workers have to pretend to look busy rather than doing actual work.

Many office workers in Asia often fall to Karoshi, (death by overwork). This is a real phenomenon and usually results in heart attacks or strokes due to the enormous pressure of being overly monitored, 60-80 hour work weeks (or more), extremely short lunches, short vacations (if at all), and being bullied or threatened to be fired at a moments notice.

The open-office-plan has never been the panacea it promised to be, open offices aren’t neutral. They actively discourage people from working together and have ruined much productivity.

From the Journal of Environmental Psychology
Open-plan office layout was commonly assumed to facilitate communication and interaction between co-workers, promoting workplace satisfaction and team-work effectiveness. That’s an absolute  myth, open-plan layouts are widely acknowledged to be more disruptive due to uncontrollable noise and loss of privacy. Enclosed and private offices clearly outperformed open-plan layouts particularly in acoustics, privacy and the proxemic issues.

From Scientific American
In a meta-analysis published last year in the Asia-Pacific Journal of Health Management by Vinesh Oommen of the Queensland University of Technology in Australia found that they cause conflict, high blood pressure and increased staff turnover. An additionaly study found that more than half of the surveyed workers in open offices said the noise and lack of sound privacy was a major problem for them.

The Solution
The Psychological anxiety employees experience via the open-office-plan has been overwhelming, there are no benefits to be gained. A cogent solution that has already been implemented by forward thinking firms has been to create a flexible working environment that includes private offices, semi-enclosed meeting areas, and remote work.