In the words of office design consultant and author Francis Duffy, “The office building is one of the great icons of the twentieth century. Office towers dominate the skylines of cities in every continentÂ… [As] the most visible index of economic activity, of social, technological, and financial progress, they have come to symbolize much of what this century has been about.”
This is true because the office building is the most tangible reflection of a profound change in employment patterns that has occurred over the last one hundred years. In present-day America, northern Europe, and Japan, at least 50 percent of the working population is employed in office settings as compared to 5 percent of the population at the beginning of the 20th century.
