Most monolithic corporate space can only be understood in terms of its symbolic value to the executives who caused it to be built. This is their mark on the firmament, the lasting accomplishment they leave behind. They gloat, “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Despair, of course, is exactly all you can do. Your cubicle, infinitely repeated to the horizon, leaves you feeling like a numbered cog. Whether it is TransAmerica’s Orwellian tower in San Francisco or AT&T’s Madison Avenue mausoleum, the result is depressingly the same: a sense of suffocation to the individual.
