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Years later,someof our subjects observedhow hard everyone
worked
and
spoke of their
new
environment
as
a work machine.
The buildingcontinued
to
look like
new
m
fflll
gm e course
of our
study, as
t did on
the
occasion of several visits.
And, as
this
is being
written,
1
was
infonned that it still looks like new.
The messages, consistent with Hewitt's goals for the
com
pany,
were
: We care.
We
care about quality.
We
care about
attention
to
detall. Dependability and durability of our product are
important to
us.
We care about our customers,
the
machines
we
make,
and thepeople
who
make and sell them. This was consistent
with Saarinen's basic approach
to
his work.
To him,
everything
mattered and nothing was taken for granted. Thus bis building, like
ali great art, has after almost forty years, stood the test of time. I
won't
be here to
see it, but 1 can't
imagine
that it could do anything
but continue to take
on
deeper and deeper
meaning.
Saarinen
was
what
mv friend Bt c
kwillf
r
Q
called a
comprehensive thinker. His Deere Co. eadquarters
was
a
statement about
the
man himself. lt was his expression
ofwhat
was
important and how we should look at the world. He understood
concepts that are just
now
being discovered about the relationship
between people
and
their environments. That is, bis building
was
a
world class statement thatto be appreciated
must be
viewed against
the
backdropofthe social, intellectual
and
regional environments in
place at the time
of
ts construction.
His work changed the company, the people and the fann
machinery industry.
Edward
T.
Hall
11n194
I INTRODUCTION .TO
m
STUDY OF EERO
SAARINEN'S BUILDING FOR DEERE COMPANY
Forthe past decade
we
have been deeply involved in the study
of man's use of
space,
and in the course of our research
we
interviewed hundreds
of
ndividual occupants ofbuildings as well as
seores of architects. In the process we developed a growing and at
times frightening awareness of
the
impact of buildings on human
behavior. During the early phase of our research in
1964 we
first
visited the headquarters of Deere
Co.,
producers of fann equip
ment and machinery, in Moline, Illinois. The building--then in
the
final stages of construction but still unoccupied-is situated off a
highway sorne ten miles from the town ofMoline. The visitortravels
along the north si de ofa wide fertile valley hugging low rolling hills
on the left. Abruptly and without forewanng
the
visitor rounds a
bend and there
it
is a breathtaking structure n Cor-Ten steel
and
glass that looks
as
though
sorne
genie
has
transported it intact from
the hidden valley ofa
J
apanese emperor
and,
having selected just he
right surroundings, set it.down without disturbing a leaf.
If
this
sounds romantic it is because
we
find it difficult
to
describe the
impact of Saarinen's masterpiece.
No
photograph begins to do it
justice because the camera works on very different principies
from
the
eye
and the
brain.
Within
the instant
of our first encounter
we
knew that
we had
to
study this building to unlock and reveal its secrets. We did study
the
building and we did discover
sorne
of its secrets, but like any
great
work
ofart t reveals itselfslowly. Studentsofarchitecturewil1
be
discovering things about Eero Saarinen's building for
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decades to come. Ouroriginal plan was quite simple: ta1k to a wide
representative sample ofpeople using the building, find out as
muchas we could about the entire
process-the
idea and need for a
building, the selectionof the architect, the c ation the ram,
and finally the building itself as a viao e struc ure. Our initi
interviewscheduleswere rather simple nd represented a baselineof
data on things people thought
and
said
be/ore
they moved into the
building. Details on the methodologyof the study appear in the last
section.
This is nota study that emphasizes contentand detail, though
this would have been possible. Sorne of the things we discovered
about the complex multi-level processes that are summarized in
Saarinen' s steel and glass statement are present in al1 buildings and
will be discussed in detail. But we had something else in mind;
namely,
to
reveal a paradigm. To
do
this we want first
to
mention
sorne unstated assumptions conceming the nature
of
a person's
relationship to his or her environment and the effect of culture on
design.
The most pervasive and important assumption, a comerstone
in the edifice of Western thought, is one that lies hidden from our
consciousnessand has
to do wil
a person' s relationship to bis orher
environment. Quite simply, the Western view is that human pro
cesses, particularly behavior, are independent of environmental
controls and influence. In his rather remarkable book, Ecologica/
Psycholo
gy
Roger Barker reports on two decades
of
studying the
role of environmental settings in everyday life in a Kansas town.
Barker states: ''The view is not uncommon among psychologists
that the environment
of
behavior is a relatively unstructured, pas
sive, probabilistic arena of objects and events upon which man
behaves in accordance with a program which he carries about within
himself. Contrary to this widely shared view Bark:er finds the
environment consisting ofhighly structured
.
.improbable arrange
ments of objects and events which coerce behavior in accordance
1
'Barker,
Roger
G. Ecological Psychology. Stanford University Press, 1968.
-
finds that e tixironment provi es a settinsw is lid
tapgard
behavior according to bindin but as yet unverbalized rules which
are more compelling nd more uniform than such individual vari
able
as
personality. Far from bein assive envirorunent actually
e ters into a transaction With umans. t IS ere Ore impOSSI e to
conduct valid studies of human behavior without reference to the
contextof he environment.
Sorne cultures of the world are concerned about fitting
humans into nature or nto societyor both (Japan, for example . But
in the Western world generallyand
m
America particularly humans
are viewed
as
dominating
al1
that is around them. t s no wonderthat
when we look at buildings as objects
of
study in this country
we
find
either a preoccupation with the responses
of
he individual occupant
orapreoccupation with the structure as a creation of an individual
architect, or even occasionally an expression of a client's
personality. Somehow we in the Western world cannot get away
from this preoccupation with the individual. Studying the Deere
building we found owselves more and more uncomfortable with this
emphasis on the individual. Saarinen, after all, had done as muchas
is humanly possible, and much more than is usual, to handle the
complexityof people s needs and
to
integrate them, their environ
ment and their jobs in a total setting. We finally realized that we
owselves ~ captives
of
our own cultureand
were
overlooking the
fact that the building was also designed to house an organization.
A third underlying assumption is that a building is a single
thing, something whichhas integrity
nd
canbe singled out from the
rest
of
he physical setting.
In
a sense we
thinkof
and treat buildings
as individual objects-good, bad, indifferent, expensive, rare, cheap,
well or poorly constructed, beautiful, ugly, cherished or despised.
We assign them al1 the qualities
of
objectsand seldom thinkof hem
as
statements - active agents in the human situation.
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Earlier we said that it is impossible to conduct valid studies of
human behavior without reference
to
context, even though context
has been largely ignored in social science virtually from the begin
ning. In
the
course of our research on the Deere building it became
more and more apparent that in studies ofbuilding one is examining
three
separate but interrelated factors:
A The structure itself, its program, design, workmanship,
materials, detailing, etc.,
B. Repeople as physiological and psychological organisms
who perfonn the functions the structure was designed to house, and
C. The ~ z tion that is also housed by the building but
which exists in a larger context. The organization and its structure
become the ontent
of
a statement that can only be read in tenns
of its setting.
How does
one
go about integrating these
three
factors? Most
of
what is known about either buildings or people is without
reference to the other while the third set ofvariables is either ignored
or unknown. Otherwise why would it be increasingly difficult to
identify either the institution or the activity from looking at most.
modem structures?
We
are not referring simply to the fact that
form
is seldom dictated
by
function, but to the wider and in sorne ways
more important irnpactof he building as a statement in an existing
communications network; what
is
the building saying? we discov-
. ered in the course of the Deere study that what the building
communicates
is
as
important in its consequences as anything else
we were able to identify.
li
organizations exist in a social matrix; almost invariably
they are associated
with
a place and usually with a structure. Tue
social matrix can
be
extremely limited and
the
structure primitive,
as
is the caseof he boys' neighborbood club house built in a vacant lot
But there is a difference between a local, a regional, and an
intemational or world-wide organization (such
as
Deere Com
pany), justas there is a difference between a school, a drug store, a
paper company,
IBM
and a farm machinery manufacturer.
JBM
represents the future
and is
growing. Farmers, farming, and
fann machinery evoke an entirely different setof mages. There is
also a difference between a single company and a conglomerate, as
well
as
a new company and one with a long past.
While
ali
this must seem quite obvious, the principies just
outlined are seldom retlected in the designofbuildings.This is due
in
part
to the fact that, in
~ c k m i n s t e r
Fuller's terms, comprehen
sive thinking is a
rare
commodity. For an architectural program to
provide a suitable environment for individuals working as members
of eams, an overall designofhigh quality, durability and strength,
and a statement that is appropriate
to
the organization and which
enhances an entire industry is asking alot. Yet this
is
what Saarinen
did.
As clearly and as simply as we can state it, the Deere
headquarters is not one thing but many different things. It is a
statement on multiple levels that symbolizes Saarinen' s concem for
the individual and his belief in the future of an industry that was in
the doldrums when this building was conceived. Like all strong
successful statements the point that comes across most clearly is that
this did not just happen. I t was planned very carefully and was the
result of great genius and thousands ofhours of attention
to
every
detall.
lanning the uilding
It is impossible to see this building without being deeply
moved and impressed. Nestled in a ravine on 700 acresofwoods, it
has views that change with the season and the hour. It is a veritable
crystal palace encased in Cor-Ten steel which has tumed a warm
cinnamon brown. The strength
of
he design is immediately appar
ent; the steel structural frame stands out
from
the shimmering glass
undemeath.
The main office building rises seven floors and faces south
toward the rivervalley, overlooking
two
lakes. Inaddition, there is
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12
a mammoth enclosed display area for Deere s huge brightly colored
tractors
and
farm machines-sorne
of
wbich approach dinosaurs in
siz(}--and an auditorium that seats four hundred people. As visitors
enter they look down on the product display area and then cross a
glass enclosed bridge that connects the display area to the main
building at the fourth floor level. The bridge provides a sense of
participation with nature
as
one walks across it at tree top level in the
midstof an outdoor panorama.
Th} interior spaces were designed withgreat careto maximize
J .
ews
n
general, each department has a large open area situa
re
d
next
to
the outside glass wall (with the exception of the Executive
Roor). Private offices were deliberately located in the central part
of
the building so that most employees could have an outside view.
Outside walls are glass with bronz.e-colored vaporized metal sealed
between two laminated plate sheets. This glass reflects outside light
and glare without affecting visibility from the inside, and in the
summer it helps reduce the load on the air conditioning system. A
combination
of
metal-louvered sun screens and glare resistant glass
is very effective inkeeping the building comfonable withouthaving
to use shades which would block the views.
E
p
cjencv and functionalism are evident throughout the build
ing. The two lakes in front of the main building not only provide
visualdelight, butone ofthem serves
to
cool the waterthatcirculates
in the air conditioning system. Water heated by this system is
sprayed into the air from fountains in the lake, cooled, and then
recirculated. Th;,partitions that forro the spaces for offices in each
department:B;: fs means the
u i l d i n ~
js e s p o n
the changes that are inevitable as the organization grows.
The interior color scheme is charcoal and off-white for the
walls and off-white tile for the floors . It was Saarinen s feeling that
people would add the color in this building nd that the out-of
doors would become part
of
the interior, hence the low-key color
scheme
H WIIT
n
a great many ways the Deere building is a direct retlection
ofWilliam
A
Hewitt, Chainnan nd Chief Executive. His stamp is
on virtuany everything in
the
building. From inception
to
final
completion, he was
the
driving force behind this building. Hewitt
worked closely with Saarinen and bis associates
for
seven years
before the building was completed. The importance ofthe Hewitt
Saarinen rapport and the enormous amount of thought and insight
that each man brought to the planning phase of he building cannot
be overestimated.
Hewitthas always beeninterested in architecture and design
and he had worked formany years with a world famous designer, the
late Henry Dreyfuss, on various projects forthe company. When we
asked Hewitt what other experiences had influenced him
and
made
him aware
of
he importance ofgood arcbitecture, he said
he
felt that
growing up in San Francisco had made him conscious of the
importanceof he environment. He also added that while he was in
college he had had a friend who taught
him
a lot about design and
architecture, and then when he married he was influenced by bis
wife
Hewitt s thinking about the kind of building he wanted for
Deere was based on several premises: first, he wanted to pull the
company together and improve employee working conditions.
Deere employees had been scattered around downtown Moline in
several different buildings-some quite
old-and
clearly there
was
a definite need for integration
of
departments. Then, he wanted a
building that would help the company attract
and
hold superior
personnel. This
is
ofcrucial importance toan ntemational business
located in a small fyfidwestem
city.
Hewitt al so wanted a building
that would be outstanding aesthetically. This would both improve
the
cg
world at large and raise the architectural
Mb t iocal community.
l J
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In thinking
about
the
type of building
he
wanted, Hewitt
favored
modero
architecture; at the
same time he
wanted a building
that
would e appropriate for
a
farrn
machinery business. Before
selecting
an
architect, he talked
to
many people-including
designers
and
business executives
who
had worked with architects.
Hewitt spent a lot of time
and
thought choosing an architect
and
Saarinen washischoice. One ofSaarinen s main attractions was his
desire to capture the spirit of he company and the personality
of
ts
Chairman
SAARINEN
Saarinen s
firm was
large enough
to
undertake such a bigjob,
yet small enough for Saarinen to
work
directly with Hewitt Their
interaction
was
unusuall y productive: that rare combination of the
right client-
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The collaboration between architect
and
client on
the
Deere
building was blessed with greater than usual syrnpathetic
understanding
and
respect. Saarinen s first design
was
an inverted
pyramid structure which was situated
on
top of a ll This design
was rejectedby the company because
they
didn
t eel
it was suited
to
their particular organization nor did it provide the flexibility they
needed.
However
it
is
important to
note
that
the
client
and the
architect
were able to
resolve their differences in such
an
amicable
way
that each felt satisfied
and wanted to
continueworking together.
Saarinen s next design was the one
the
company chose to build.
Saarinenfinished
the
working
drawings
ofhis building, but
he
did not live to see it completed.
He
died the
week
after construction
began. Fortunately, several of his associates
had
been
deeply
involved in the Deere building
and
were
able to
see that the building
was completed in accordance with Saarinen s idealsand standards.
These men
were Kevin
Roche, John Dinkeloo,
J.N. Lacy and
Warren
Platner.
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11 THE PLANNING PROCESS
n
addition to Hewitt there were four Deere officials who
made up the company s Committee, ali of
whom
worked closely
with Saarinenand
his
associates in he planning stagesand through-
out construction. lnitial planning for the building had begun before
1957 when Booz, Allen and Hamilton, management consultants,
made a detailed study of the company s future
needs.
First, they
swveyed the space used by each department in the old buildings,
then they interviewed ali department managers
to
detennine future
growth and future space
needs.
They projected these space needs to
1970, based on data provided by departmental managers. (Ulti-
mately sorne projections proved more accurate than others, of
course.) Armed with the Booz, Allen and Hamilton infonnation,the
Building Committee then decided which departments should go
where and how many floors would be required.
Al1
this basic data
was
supplied to the architect anda great deal of time
was
spent
deciding what each department s space requirements would be
before the design
was
frozen.
For the architect i is vitali y important that a client be able to
tellhim what the projected growth of he company will be within a
five
to ten year period. Otherwise, how can
he
plan for growth? As
it urned out, the Deere growth projections based on the Booz, Allen
and Hamilton reportwere reasonably accurate
in
most departments.
However, there
was
unforeseen growth in heExport Order Division
which meant that thisdepartment later became crowded, nd this in
turn necessitated adjustments within the department. Fortunately,
the flexibility of Saarinen s interior design
was
such that partitions
could be moved, and the department
was able to
accommodatemore
people. The point we wish to emphasize is that
two
things are
required for an office building
to
be responsive to future growth:
1) accurate growth projections supplied
to
the architect and
2) flexibility in the interior space design provided by the architect.
THEMODULE
lt was the employee atwork
and
bis or herspace needs that led
to the establishmentof severa basic module sizes which Saarinen
presented
to
the Building Committee. Two members ofthis commit-
tee, Joseph Dain and George Neiley, chose the basic module of 3 x
6 feet for the building. The committee then built their own full size
ockups using wood sides.Eventually they settled on three basic
office sizes:9x 2
feet,
12x12, and 12 x
18
.The 12x18 footoffices
were later reduced
to
12
x
15
in order
to
provide more office space .
The 12x15 foot size seems
to
wolkjustas well. The onlyexception
to these three basic sizes
are
the offices on the Second Floor which
arelarger.
Tl size of desk determined the minimum amount of space
that any employee would have. Saarinen and Associates designed
the
desks as well as
a
other furniture for
the
building. In our view,
this
is another important factor in
the
success
of
his building.
Ei
ther
the architect must design the minimum
work
area or speci
fy
pre-
cisely what its dimensions will
be.
Otherwise, there can be no real
planning of the interior spaces
and
their relation to the outer
structure.Oerks and secretaries were provided
with
a desk;drafts-
men were given a table and storage space. For employees with
private offices, each person was given a
desk
and a credenza.
MODELS
ND
MOCKUPS
Saarinen was a great believer in mock-ups and models. He
made a model ofeach floor with
fumiture,
wall color, floor surfaces,
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etc., using a scale
of
1
1/2
inches to the
foot. Early
in the project it
was
decided
to
puild a full-scale mock-up at a cost
of
about
100,000.
Since
the mock-up proved
to
be extremely useful for
testing design ideas it was well worth the price. This one-bay
two
storymock-up now located beyond the parking lot) made it possible
to
testand correct the effectiveness of he sun-screenlouvers and the
glare-resistant glass which
were
items
of
he greatest importance in
the overall
design.
Color schemes could
be
tried out as
well as
designs
for
filing cabinets,
and
mock-ups
of
urniture.
Also,
sample
columns of Cor-Ten steel were erected and they began
to
weather
and
gave everyone
an
idea of
how they
would look on
the
finished
building.
Everything
in
the building and
in
th building design itself
was reviewedby H ewitt and the Building Committee and evaluated
in
modelform or inful l sea/e mock ups be/ore itwas accepted. e
believe it is important
to
overstate
the
importance
of
models
and
mock-ups.
As
most architects eventually discover, many clients
have
no
ability
to
visualize
how
a building
will
look
when
it's
completed. This is
hard
for architects to understand because they
themselves are visually oriented. They can
see
in their
mind
complete designs
which
they then translate into renderings or
blueprints. But the client usually
has
great difficulty visualizing
spacesas depicted in blueprints. He or she can
t
ell what aroom will
look like until it's built. This is why l rg
s
lemodels and mock
ups are so necessary.
Nothing
seems
to have escaped
the
attention
of
Saarinen and
Hewitt. Fumiture
and
equipment were viewed in model fonn,
discussed
and
considered
at
length,
down
to and including such
things as the china and flatware
used
in the dining rooms, salt
cellars, even the paper packages for sugar on the dining tables.
Throughout the building
ll
fixtures
were
carefully selected -door
handles, drinking fountains, directories, floor plates in
the
firewells.
Nowhere
is
attention
to
detail more noticeable than
in he
design of
the washrooms, where Saarinen took great pains
to
provide
simple,
21
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elegant
fixtures.
Even
the
paper
towel
dispensers which atfirst were
so unobtrusive nobodycouldfind them-reflect a detenninedeffort
to
maintain standards of understated quality. The supervision of
constructionwas also exacting. One of Saarinen's staff
was
on hand
during
the
entire construction period
and
every change
from speci
ficationhad to
be
approved
by
Saarinen s office.
The
contractorwas
reported to have said that he ... had never been as closely
oversupervised. This may
be
true, but the results speak for
them-
selves.
OST
The cost of the building is privileged data and is not
generally known within the organization. While
we
do not feel free
to release th figure which was only recently reported to
us we do
feel compelled to
say
that it
was
much less
th n
we had
estimated.
In fact, our own estimate
was
double the
actual
cost figure
and
substantiallyless than buildings
of
similar quality like
the
Seagram' s
building. Naturally, in comparing these cost figures
we
excluded
land
and fumiture.
There
are
many reasons
why the Deere
building is
nomical building but surely one of
the
most important is the
extensive use of pre-finished materials thatdo not require expensive
labor.
Examples
abound:
movable partitions, vinyl asbestos floor
tUeand prefinished ceiling material. Another labor saving factor
was
the minimal use of plaster which appears
only
in
the
main
corridor walls
and
in executive offices on the Second Floor. The
exposed brick in the central core and the rest rooms also requires
no
finishing.The exterior steel
frame
of
the
building is Cor-Ten which
has its own oxidized finish
and
needs
no
paint orprotective coating.
Most architects who have toured
the
building comment on the
excellent
use of
material related t both initial costand maintenance
costs. Forus
the
building is proof hat good design is not dependent
on high cost.
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This buildingwas obviously built
to
lastand will undoubtedly
tum out
to
be avery wise investment on the part of he company, i
not a real bargain, as building costs soar every year. Because of its
country location the building cost a fraction
of
anything of
comparable size in a city. Trying
to
allocate costs within the
company would
be
very difficult because this building
does
much
more than just house 1 200 employees. It
has
been
an
invaluable
asset in personnel recruitment and company public relations.
How the uilding Works
While the initial impact of
his
building is overwhelming
and
one is immediately impressed by its great strength
and
beauty, there
is something else that comes through even
more
forcefully
as
one
visits it repeatedly. Everything
conv
e
ys
quality
and
congruence.
Each component of this building seems to wotk in harmony with
every other component-all of
them at
the same
high
level
of
performance. The beauty
of
its setting seems balanced by the
perfection of ts design, rooted in meticulous planning.
Certain spaces elicit certain behavior and
this building
was
designed
for work.
In
the words
of
one
employee, This building is
a beautiful work machine. Another man voiced
this
opinion about
the
building before he moved
in:
Sorne people aren
t
going to like
this
building because they are going
to
have
to
pull
up
their socks.
This struck usas an accurate prediction. The extreme sense oforder,
efficiency, neatness
and
precision that one feels as one walks
through the building's interiors undoubtedly carnes over
to
ll
employees to
sorne
degree. It 's hard to
iJna
ine
an
one feer that
this
SQace
was desimed for anxthing but work.
This sense of orderliness
and
efficiency is reinforced by such
things as the absence of the clutter of personal effects in anyone s
office. Hats and coats are hung in closets in the central corridors.
Few personal mementoes are displayed in work areas. There is also
a clean
desk
policy that
requires
employees
to
put everything
away
7/25/2019 01. the Fourth Dimension in Architecture
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26
away
at
the
end
of
each
day.
At first there were
many
complaints
about this, but by
the
end of five years
people
apparently
had
become use
to
it
and
the complaints
were
less
frequent.
Each floor contains 31,600 square feet. A 12-foot central
corridor between
two
rows of exposed steel columns gives
an
unobstructed area on each floor, with a 42-foot span on each side of
the corridor to the exterior glass walls. Movable steel partitions
spaced in accordance
with
a 3 x 6 foot module divide the floor areas
to
suit departmental needs.
As
the visitorwalks through the interiors of
he
building he or
she
can't help being struck by
the
sense of compartmentalization.
Each department
is
successfully enclosed
and
screened
from
other
departments
and
far enough from the long central
c o ~ r
to
Q OVide
a sense of privacy-almost isolation-from the rest of the
organization. i n t r u e s on these departmental units. They
~
~
sort o
t it
e
:
protected
from
auditory
and
visual
f14
1stractons
.
While it is true that
the
building compartmentalizes
the
company, this
s
entirely consistentwith organization of Deere
and
Company,
where departments are self-contained
units.
The building
probably strengthens each department's interna functioning.
However, it should be noted that a design which segregares depart
ments would not work for
an
organization that depends on maxi-
mum
interaction between departments. Again, it demonstrates the
importance ofthe architects's understanding ofhow the organiza
tion wotks, so that his design can be congruent with tbe way his
client 's business functions. Architects cannot overcome personnel
or organizational problems, but at least they should not add to
these problems. This means that architects must knuw their client s
goals needs,functions and organization.
Perhaps
the
thing that most impressed
us
about the building
on our last visit is the fact that after five
years
of occupancy it
still
looked brand new. For a building housing twelve hundred employ
ees
for
five years this
is
no
small achievement
and
reflects both
the
excellence
of
Saarinen s design
and the
superior maintenance pro
vided by thecompany.
Anothervery impressive feature is
the
fl.exibility of
he
floor
to-ceiling partitions which Saarinen designed, enabling various
departments to rearrange their
space
as needed.
They
are so
well
designed that they show little sign
of
wearand tear despite consider
able
spatial rearrangemt:nt in several departments. The common
objection to many movable walls is: 1)
that
they are in practice not
very
movable;
2) people don
tmove them.
The partitions often split
the difference between the temporary
and the
permanent -they have
the advantages
of neither
and
the disadvantages ofboth. Saarinen
managed
to
design movable walls that look like part of
he
building.
It should be noted that
the
maintenance department at Deere
and
Company
has really mastered
the
art of moving walls, and can
completely rearrange a department ovemight. They 'vedone it often
enough
to
know
how
to
do
it
well, and they
have quality material to
work
with. We've observed the operation and while it cannot be
termed effortless, it does work and
work
well.
RESTROOMS
The rest rooms are unusually handsome, spacious and well
designed - the most luxurious
we
have ever seen in any office
building. About the only major deficiency
we
noted
is
the lack of
provision for a rest
~
adjacent to
the Jadies rooms.
It's
ve
importantto provide
sorne
place
where women
can
lle down
quietly
for afew minutes. Without such a rest area,
when
a woman doesn t
feel well or just
wants to
rest for afew minutes she has to go down
to the ground floor First Aid Room
which
simply cannot
accommo-
date all those
who
need a quiet place
to
rest.
IMPACT
ON MPWY S
In
our
interviews of
Deere
personnel, individual responses
to
the building varied widely. In contrast
to
sorne
who
felt inhibited by
27
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the building' s design, there were severa people
(in
product design,
engineering
and
advertising) who mentioned that the building had
actually changed their approachto their
work. They
felt freerto
seek
new
solutions
and
to
try
things out.
As
one
said,
"This building
n g e d my
thinkng and I'm not so much in a rut anymore."
A
few
employees feltthat theircreativity
as well as
their
own
sense of individuality
was
hampered by
the
building.
This
was
expressed as dissatisfaction with
the
fact thaw
0
one can
ge
rsonalize
s or her own work sgace . The design its
cli' d
oes not filow
iS
"personal touches,"
and
there are strict regulations preventing
~ ~ ~ o p l e
from
putting
up
pictures, photographs, maps, charts, etc.
This is
an
effort on management's part to pre
serv
e the purity of
design
and
keep
out any
"Mickey Mouse" touches.
28
S9me people felt the building denied them privacy
and
they
spoke ofbeing "on display a1l the time ." The large glass areas offer
practically isual
Qrivacv
and
most
eo
le
are
clearly visible to
t a numberof othersanday lon
g.
Even private offices have sorne glass
l walls. This imposes certain restrictions on people's behavior. You
don't put your feet
up
on your desk or take off your necktie.
A
few
people rnentioned
to us
that they
found the
building
tiring We
began thinking about this
and
wondering what features
contributed to this particular reaction. First, we thought of he work
tempo in the building, which
is
very noticeable.
You
feel this when
you walk into the building and as you go from one department to
another. Everyone is working hard
and
pushing themselves.
The
building itselfhas a kind of"rapid beat"
and
is experienced
by
sorne
as
alittle
cold,
a
feeling
that is
contributed
to
by
the
florescent ceilings.
Another factor that
may be
responsible for the feelings of
fatigue is the fact that there are
no areas where
employ
ees
can gather
-
nformally--no lounges or meeting
rooms
. This
means
that on
coffee breaks
and
at lunch hour o fo can only go to the cafeteria
Cl
z
o
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