The nature of work is not a fixed thing

摘要

If there are any corollaries to be drawn between Antonello da Messina's 1475 painting St Jerome in his Study and modern working practice, it's the fact that, long before the 21st century notion of hot desking, the artist had, in his own way, imagined the future of work. The saint, sequestered within his bespoke environment in some chapter house or library, was occupying the first consciously cellular workspace. It is only a short leap of the imagination from this to Frank Lloyd Wright's Johnson Wax Building, Hertzberger's Centraal Beheer or Foster's Willis Faber building. Given such precedents, we were aware that a lot was being asked of the 90 entrants to Norbord SterlingOSB's Room within a Room competition. For the judges, it was about nothing less than selecting those who recognised that the nature of work might not be a fixed but a mutable thing.