Open plan office = panopticon?

"The Panopticon is a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad [...] to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power."

I just watched a Danish TV program about the emergent popularity of the open plan office (kontorslandskap, in Swedish). The justifications given for this architectural solution were very interesting, and reminded me of the ideological aspect of the organization of buildings and other places. (T & I once joked about writing a tract on the philosophy of corridors. Maybe we will, someday.)

A researcher at the university of Århus claimed an idea about work embraced by more and more people to be that work should not be limited be to a particular place. Work can, and should, be done anywhere; at the beach, at home, in a café. People are not meant to stay at their office station all the time, that is part of the point with open plan offices. On a practical level, this means, I suppose, that people should be available at any time, prepared and willing to reply to e-mails, to reply to phone calls, to write reports. Work is, potentially, anywhere and always.

Workers are, it was said, supposed to move around, talk to each other and be concerned with the job tasks of their colleagues. It is a bad thing to be too invested in one's own work - this was the main point in the program. One person reassured the viewers that those who are not so impressed by the open plan office usually has not worked in such a place. Once one has experienced it, one will accept it and like it. A woman talked about the regularity with which she, and other co-workers, had to move around, from desk to desk, and this seemed to be part & parcel of the work routines at her office (I wonder whether the same was true for senior mgmt). One should not be too attached to one's work task, nor should one be too attached to a particular place.

I thought: Perpetual adaptability. An anonymous space is designed to look "cosy" and "relaxed" by means of lounge areas and other paraphernalia; a really expensive coffee machine will induce the conviction that one is not at work-work - this is a space for self-realization and social, friendly relations.

The open plan office has its roots in taylorist & fordist ideas about efficiency. Clerks and typists performed identical tasks at identical desks. But moving around a lot, engaging in conversations and the work of others does not really sound like the taylorist utopia, does it? Or are we simply seeing another version of it...? "Endless work" (endless exploitation)? "Open plan" as in "open to control"? Movable units are more manageable? (Foucault-ish) Internalized surveillance ? Open space office - open in many senses -the spaceless office. "Surveillance" is, not so much, a specific group of management, but it is anyone, you are it, in relation to yourself.

I worked in a place like that once. It scared the shit out of me. But maybe somebody else has different experiences of it? But this is, for sure, a scary description of office work and office space.