Francis Ford Coppola has a long-standing habit of keeping soldering irons, switches, and diodes in his various production offices over the years. He used to love tinkering with electronic gizmos as a kid, and thinks the presence of the tools helps recenter him on the primal importance of building things from scratch. Whenever I see a generic home office, with its white bookcases and office-supply-store wall hangings, I can’t help but think about all the ways in which its inhabitant could remake the setting into something more tailored to the work it supports.
