The Myth of Leisure: Bean Bag Chairs and Corporate Tech Campuses
Arts
HAVC 191U - City on a Hill: The Architecture of the Campus
This thesis paper is an analysis of modern corporate tech campuses' architectures and interior design through a sociological history of the bean bag chair. Such campuses are viewed in the public consciousness as fun, attractive, and idyllic landscapes that are more playground than workplace, which the bean bag chair is an essential part of. But this image modern tech offices does nothing more than hide these companies’ efforts to optimize productivity from their employees in existing systems of capitalist labor exploitation. The bean bag chair has had a similar history, first created among the radical Italian design movement of the 60s and 70s with the intention of shifting social configurations, but was then prey to corporate co-opting that has diluted and hidden the original use values of the chair.
