An office is a space where the employees of an organization perform administrative work in order to support and realize the various goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific duties attached to it (see officer or official ); the latter is an earlier usage, as "office" originally referred to the location of one's duty. In its adjective form, the term "office" may refer to business -related tasks. In law , a company or organization has offices in any place where it has an official presence, even if that presence consists of a storage silo , for example, instead of a more traditional establishment with a desk and chair . An office is also an architectural and design phenomenon, including small offices, such as a bench in the corner of a small business or a room in someone's home (see small office/home office ), entire floors of buildings, and massive buildings dedicated entirely to one company. In modern terms, an office is usually the location where white-collar workers carry out their functions.
79-634: The Dexter Horton Building (710 2nd Avenue) is a 15-story office building in Seattle , Washington, United States. It is located at the intersection of 2nd Avenue and Cherry Street in Downtown Seattle and was the headquarters of the Seattle First National Bank (Seafirst) until it built a new building, now known as Safeco Plaza , in 1969. The building was opened in 1924 and designed by John Graham . It underwent seismic renovations in 2002 and
158-501: A lead -based alloy which suited printing purposes so well that it is still used today. The mass production of metal letters was achieved by his key invention of a special hand mould , the matrix . The Latin alphabet proved to be an enormous advantage in the process because, in contrast to logographic writing systems , it allowed the type-setter to represent any text with a theoretical minimum of only around two dozen different letters. Another factor conducive to printing arose from
237-478: A 3,000,000-square-foot (280,000 m ) building in Chicago, at the time the largest building in the world. The time and motion study , pioneered in manufacturing by F. W. Taylor and later applied to the office environment by Frank and Lillian Gilbreth , led to the idea that managers needed to play an active role in directing the work of subordinates to increase the efficiency of the workplace. F.W. Taylor advocated
316-514: A compositor into the desired lines of text. Several lines of text would be arranged at once and were placed in a wooden frame known as a galley . Once the correct number of pages were composed, the galleys would be laid face up in a frame, also known as a forme, which itself is placed onto a flat stone, 'bed,' or 'coffin.' The text is inked using two balls , pads mounted on handles. The balls were made of dog skin leather, because it has no pores, and stuffed with sheep's wool and were inked. This ink
395-630: A few decades. From a single print shop in Mainz , Germany, printing had spread to no less than around 270 cities in Central, Western and Eastern Europe by the end of the 15th century. As early as 1480, there were printers active in 110 different places in Germany, Italy, France , Spain , the Netherlands , Belgium , Switzerland , England , Bohemia and Poland . From that time on, it is assumed that "the printed book
474-499: A hand press connected to a steam engine ." In April 1811, the first production trial of this model occurred. He produced his machine with assistance from German engineer Andreas Friedrich Bauer . In 1814, Koenig and Bauer sold two of their first models to The Times in London , capable of 1,100 impressions per hour. The first edition so printed was on 28 November 1814. They improved the early model so that it could print on both sides of
553-515: A lot of concentration, or include many small meetings. Shared office : a compact, semi-private workspace designed for two or three individuals, facilitating both focused work and small group collaboration. Team room : an enclosed workspace for four to ten people; suitable for teamwork that may be confidential and demands frequent internal communication. Study booth : an enclosed workspace for one person; suitable for short-term activities that demand concentration or confidentiality. Work lounge :
632-1734: A lounge-like workspace for two to six people; suitable for short-term activities that demand collaboration and/or allow impromptu interaction. Touch down : an open workspace for one person; suitable for short-term activities that require little concentration and low interaction. Meeting spaces in an office typically use interactive processes, be they quick conversations or intensive brainstorming. There are six generic types of meeting spaces, each supporting different activities. Small meeting room : an enclosed meeting space for two to four people; suitable for both formal and informal interaction. Medium meeting room : an enclosed meeting space for four to ten people; suitable for both formal and informal interaction. Large meeting room : an enclosed meeting space for ten or more people; suitable for formal interaction. Small meeting space : an open or semi-open meeting space for two to four persons; suitable for short, informal interaction. Medium meeting space : an open or semi-open meeting space for four to ten persons; suitable for short, informal interaction. Large meeting space : an open or semi-open meeting space for ten or more people people; suitable for short, informal interaction. Brainstorm room : an enclosed meeting space for five to twelve people; suitable for brainstorming sessions and workshops. Meeting point : an open meeting point for two to four people; suitable for ad hoc, informal meetings. Support spaces in an office are typically used for secondary activities such as filing documents or taking breaks. There are twelve generic types of support spaces, each supporting different activities. Filing space : an open or enclosed support space for
711-535: A major role in rallying support, and opposition, during the lead-up to the English Civil War , and later still the American and French Revolutions through newspapers, pamphlets and bulletins. The advent of the printing press brought with it issues involving censorship and freedom of the press. The invention of mechanical movable type printing led to a huge increase of printing activities across Europe within only
790-448: A paper mill. However, it was not until a 1439 lawsuit against Gutenberg that an official record existed; witnesses' testimony discussed Gutenberg's types, an inventory of metals (including lead), and his type molds. Having previously worked as a professional goldsmith, Gutenberg made skillful use of the knowledge of metals he had learned as a craftsman. He was the first to make type from an alloy of lead , tin , and antimony , which
869-408: A press in its completed form, with tympans attached to the end of the carriage, and with the frisket above the tympans. The tympans, inner and outer, are thin iron frames, one fitting into the other, on each of which is stretched a skin of parchment or a breadth of fine cloth. A woollen blanket or two with a few sheets of paper are placed between these, the whole thus forming a thin elastic pad, on which
SECTION 10
#1733105440261948-431: A reasonably cost-effective duplicating solution for commerce at this time. The table lists the maximum number of pages which the various press designs could print per hour . General: Printing presses: Other inventions: From old price tables it can be deduced that the capacity of a printing press around 1600, assuming a fifteen-hour workday, was between 3.200 and 3.600 impressions per day. This method almost doubled
1027-400: A result of the country's unique business culture. Japanese offices tend to follow open plan layouts in an 'island-style' arrangement, which promotes teamwork and top-down management. They also use uchi-awase (informal meetings) and ringi-sho (consensus systems) to encourage input on policies from as many groups throughout the office as possible. The main purpose of an office environment
1106-433: A result, more office space was assigned to house their activities. The time-and-motion study , pioneered in manufacturing by F. W. Taylor (1856–1915), led to the "Modern Efficiency Desk" of 1915. Its flat top, with drawers below, was designed to allow managers an easy view of their workers. By the middle of the 20th century, it became apparent that an efficient office required additional control over privacy , and gradually
1185-618: A semi-enclosed workspace for two to eight people; suitable for teamwork which demands frequent internal communication and a medium level of concentration. Cubicle : a semi-enclosed workspace for one person; suitable for activities that demand medium concentration and medium interaction. Office Pod : ideal for fostering privacy in today's bustling open-plan offices. It provides a cost-effective and efficient way to ensure privacy and continuity during conversations, calls, and video conferences. Private office : an enclosed workspace for one person; suitable for activities that are confidential, demand
1264-625: A semi-open or enclosed support space where employees can take a break from their work. Locker area : an open or semi-open support space where employees can store their personal belongings. Smoking room : an enclosed support space where employees can smoke a cigarette. Library : a semi-open or enclosed support space for reading books, journals and magazines. Games room : an enclosed support space where employees can play games, such as pool or darts. Waiting area : an open or semi-open support space where visitors can be received and wait for their appointment. Circulation space : support space which
1343-432: A sheet at once. This began the long process of making newspapers available to a mass audience, which helped spread literacy. From the 1820s it changed the nature of book production, forcing a greater standardization in titles and other metadata . Their company Koenig & Bauer AG is still one of the world's largest manufacturers of printing presses today. The steam-powered rotary printing press , invented in 1843 in
1422-474: A simple solution and provide all of the former types of space. Workspaces in an office are typically used for conventional office activities such as reading, writing, and computer work. There are nine generic types of workspaces, each supporting different activities. Open office : an open workspace for more than ten people; suitable for activities that demand frequent communication or routine activities that need relatively little concentration. Team space :
1501-483: A sort of office, serving as the space where records and laws were stored and copied. With the growth of large, complex organizations in the 18th century, the first purpose-built office spaces were constructed. As the Industrial Revolution intensified in the 18th and 19th centuries, the industries of banking , rail , insurance , retail , petroleum , and telegraphy grew dramatically, requiring many clerks. As
1580-543: Is also credited with the introduction of an oil-based ink which was more durable than the previously used water-based inks. As printing material he used both paper and vellum (high-quality parchment). In the Gutenberg Bible , Gutenberg made a trial of colour printing for a few of the page headings, present only in some copies. A later work, the Mainz Psalter of 1453, presumably designed by Gutenberg but published under
1659-495: Is required for circulation on office floors, linking all major functions. Lactation rooms are also support spaces that are legally mandatory for companies in the United States, as of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth ), thereby transferring
SECTION 20
#17331054402611738-425: Is rolled under the platen , using a windlass mechanism. A small rotating handle called the 'rounce' is used to do this, and the impression is made with a screw that transmits pressure through the platen. To turn the screw the long handle attached to it is turned. This is known as the bar or 'Devil's Tail.' In a well-set-up press, the springiness of the paper, frisket, and tympan caused the bar to spring back and raise
1817-513: Is to support its occupants in performing their jobs—preferably at minimum cost and with maximum satisfaction. Different people performing different tasks will require different office spaces, or spaces that can handle a variety of uses. To aid decision-making in workplace and office design, one can distinguish three different types of office spaces: workspaces, meeting spaces, and support spaces. For new or developing businesses, remote satellite offices and project rooms, or serviced offices , can provide
1896-500: The 42-line Bible . After much experimentation, Gutenberg managed to overcome the difficulties which traditional water-based inks caused by soaking the paper, and found the formula for an oil-based ink suitable for high-quality printing with metal type. A printing press, in its classical form, is a standing mechanism, ranging from 5 to 7 feet (1.5 to 2.1 m) long, 3 feet (0.91 m) wide, and 7 feet (2.1 m) tall. The small individual metal letters known as type would be set up by
1975-584: The Mediterranean and medieval diet . The device was also used from very early on in urban contexts as a cloth press for printing patterns. Gutenberg may have also been inspired by the paper presses which had spread through the German lands since the late 14th century and which worked on the same mechanical principles. During the Islamic Golden Age , Arab Muslims were printing texts, including passages from
2054-610: The Qur’an , embracing the Chinese craft of paper making, developed it and adopted it widely in the Muslim world , which led to a major increase in the production of manuscript texts. In Egypt during the Fatimid era, the printing technique was adopted reproducing texts on paper strips by hand and supplying them in various copies to meet the demand. Gutenberg adopted the basic design, thereby mechanizing
2133-635: The United States by Richard M. Hoe , ultimately allowed millions of copies of a page in a single day. Mass production of printed works flourished after the transition to rolled paper, as continuous feed allowed the presses to run at a much faster pace. Hoe's original design operated at up to 2,000 revolutions per hour where each revolution deposited 4 page images, giving the press a throughput of 8,000 pages per hour. By 1891, The New York World and Philadelphia Item were operating presses producing either 90,000 4-page sheets per hour or 48,000 8-page sheets. In
2212-494: The cubicle system evolved. The word "office" stems from the Latin " officium " and its equivalents in various Romance languages . An officium was not necessarily a place, but often referred instead to human staff members of an organization, or even the abstract notion of a formal position like a magistrate. The elaborate Roman bureaucracy would not be equaled for centuries in the West after
2291-501: The movable-type printing press, which started the Printing Revolution . Modelled on the design of existing screw presses , a single Renaissance movable-type printing press could produce up to 3,600 pages per workday, compared to forty by hand-printing and a few by hand-copying . Gutenberg's newly devised hand mould made possible the precise and rapid creation of metal movable type in large quantities. His two inventions,
2370-498: The typographical principle , the idea of creating a text by reusing individual characters, was known and had been cropping up since the 12th century and possibly before (the oldest known application dating back as far as the Phaistos disc ). The first movable type was invented by Chinese engineer Bi Sheng in the 11th century during the Song dynasty , and a book dating to 1193 recorded
2449-435: The 16th century, with presses spreading further afield, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies. By the mid-17th century, the first printing presses arrived in colonial America in response to the increasing demand for Bibles and other religious literature. The operation of a press became synonymous with the enterprise of printing and lent its name to a new medium of expression and communication, "
Dexter Horton Building - Misplaced Pages Continue
2528-711: The 18th century to suit the needs of large and growing organizations such as the Royal Navy and the East India Company . The Old Admiralty ( Ripley Building ) was built in 1726 and was the first purpose-built office building in Great Britain. As well as offices, the building housed a board room and apartments for the Lords of the Admiralty. In the 1770s, many scattered offices for the Royal Navy were gathered into Somerset House ,
2607-649: The author was less important, since a copy of Aristotle made in Paris would not be exactly identical to one made in Bologna. For many works prior to the printing press, the name of the author has been entirely lost. Because the printing process ensured that the same information fell on the same pages, page numbering, tables of contents , and indices became common, though they previously had not been unknown. The process of reading also changed, gradually moving over several centuries from oral readings to silent, private reading. Over
2686-623: The book existing in the format of the codex , which had originated in the Roman period . Considered the most important advance in the history of the book prior to printing itself, the codex had completely replaced the ancient scroll at the onset of the Middle Ages (AD 500). The codex holds considerable practical advantages over the scroll format: it is more convenient to read (by turning pages), more compact, and less costly, and both recto and verso sides could be used for writing or printing, unlike
2765-460: The building as the first specialty coffee bar in downtown Seattle in 1983. This article about a building or structure in the U.S. state of Washington is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Office building In classical antiquity , offices were often part of a palace complex or a large temple. In the High Middle Ages (1000–1300), the medieval chancery acted as
2844-428: The central office each day. As the Industrial Revolution intensified in the 18th and 19th centuries, the industries of banking , rail , insurance , retail , petroleum , and telegraphy dramatically grew in size and complexity. Increasingly large number of clerks were needed to handle order processing, accounting, and document filing, and these clerks needed to be housed in increasingly specialized spaces. Most of
2923-418: The desks of the era were top-heavy and had a cubicle-like appearance, with paper storage bins extending above the desk-work area, offering workers some degree of privacy. The relatively high price of land in the central core of cities led to the first multi-story buildings, which were limited to about 10 stories until the use of iron and steel allowed for higher structures. The first purpose-built office block
3002-528: The establishment of widely disseminated scholarly journals, helping to bring on the Scientific Revolution . Because of the printing press, authorship became more meaningful and profitable. It was suddenly important who had said or written what, and what the precise formulation and time of composition was. This allowed the exact citing of references, producing the rule, "One Author, one work (title), one piece of information" (Giesecke, 1989; 325). Before,
3081-401: The existence of such "offices". These rooms are sometimes called "libraries" by some archaeologists because of scrolls' association with literature. They were, however, closer to modern offices because the scrolls were meant for record-keeping and other management functions, not for poetry or works of fiction. The High Middle Ages (1000–1300) saw the rise of the medieval chancery , which was
3160-471: The fall of Rome , with areas partially reverting to illiteracy. Further east, the Byzantine Empire and varying Islamic caliphates preserved a more sophisticated administrative culture. Offices in classical antiquity were often part of a palace complex or a large temple. There was often a room where scrolls were kept and scribes did their work. Ancient texts mentioning the work of scribes allude to
3239-447: The first copyright laws were passed. On the other hand, the printing press was criticized for allowing the dissemination of information that may have been incorrect. A second outgrowth of this popularization of knowledge was the decline of Latin as the language of most published works, to be replaced by the vernacular language of each area, increasing the variety of published works. The printed word also helped to unify and standardize
Dexter Horton Building - Misplaced Pages Continue
3318-534: The first block purpose-built for office work. The East India House was built in 1729 on Leadenhall Street as the headquarters from which the East India Company administered its Indian colonial possessions . The Company developed a very complex bureaucracy for the task, necessitating thousands of office employees to process the required paperwork. The Company recognized the benefits of centralized administration and required that all workers sign in and out at
3397-648: The first copper movable type. This received limited use compared to woodblock printing. The technology spread outside China, as the oldest printed book using metal movable type was the Jikji , printed in Korea in 1377 during the Goryeo era. Other notable examples include the Prüfening inscription from Germany, letter tiles from England and Altarpiece of Pellegrino II in Italy. However,
3476-468: The force required by 90%, while doubling the size of the printed area. With a capacity of 480 pages per hour, the Stanhope press doubled the output of the old style press. Nonetheless, the limitations inherent to the traditional method of printing became obvious. Two ideas altered the design of the printing press radically: First, the use of steam power for running the machinery, and second the replacement of
3555-475: The hand mould and the movable-type printing press, together drastically reduced the cost of printing books and other documents in Europe, particularly for shorter print runs. From Mainz , the movable-type printing press spread within several decades to over 200 cities in a dozen European countries. By 1500, printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than 20 million volumes. In
3634-482: The imprint of his successors Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer , had elaborate red and blue printed initials. The Printing Revolution occurred when the spread of the printing press facilitated the wide circulation of information and ideas, acting as an "agent of change" through the societies that it reached. Demand for bibles and other religious literature was one of the main drivers of the very rapid initial expansion of printing. Much later, printed literature played
3713-429: The ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the cloth, paper, or other medium was brushed or rubbed repeatedly to achieve the transfer of ink and accelerated the process. Typically used for texts, the invention and global spread of the printing press was one of the most influential events in the second millennium. In Germany , around 1440, the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented
3792-559: The invention of the printing press and its wider distribution, there was often no clear cultural distinction between a private office and a private library ; books were both read and written at the same desk or table , as were personal and professional accounts and letters. During the 13th century, the English word "office" first began to appear when referring to a position involving specific professional duties (for example, "the office of the....") Geoffrey Chaucer appears to have first used
3871-551: The middle of the 19th century, there was a separate development of jobbing presses , small presses capable of printing small-format pieces such as billheads , letterheads, business cards, and envelopes. Jobbing presses were capable of quick setup, with an average setup time for a small job was under 15 minutes, and quick production. Even on treadle-powered jobbing presses it was considered normal to get 1,000 impressions per hour [iph] with one pressman, with speeds of 1,500 iph often attained on simple envelope work. Job printing emerged as
3950-637: The midpoint of the 20th century, it became apparent that an efficient office required more privacy in order to combat tedium, increase productivity, and encourage creativity. In 1964, the Herman Miller (office equipment) company contracted Robert Propst , a prolific industrial designer. Propst came up with the concept of the Action Office , which later evolved into the cubicle office furniture system. Offices in Japan have developed unique characteristics partly as
4029-669: The monopoly of the literate elite on education and learning and bolstered the emerging middle class . Across Europe, the increasing cultural self-awareness of its peoples led to the rise of proto- nationalism and accelerated the development of European vernaculars , to the detriment of Latin 's status as lingua franca . In the 19th century, the replacement of the hand-operated Gutenberg-style press by steam-powered rotary presses allowed printing on an industrial scale. The rapid economic and socio-cultural development of late medieval society in Europe created favorable intellectual and technological conditions for Gutenberg's improved version of
SECTION 50
#17331054402614108-538: The next 200 years, the wider availability of printed materials led to a dramatic rise in the adult literacy rate throughout Europe. The printing press was an important step towards the democratization of knowledge . Within 50 or 60 years of the invention of the printing press, the entire classical canon had been reprinted and widely promulgated throughout Europe (Eisenstein, 1969; 52). More people had access to knowledge both new and old, more people could discuss these works. Book production became more commercialised, and
4187-583: The page, did not exceed an output of forty pages per day. Of Erasmus 's work, at least 750,000 copies were sold during his lifetime alone (1469–1536). In the early days of the Reformation, the revolutionary potential of bulk printing took princes and papacy alike by surprise. In the period from 1518 to 1524, the publication of books in Germany alone skyrocketed sevenfold; between 1518 and 1520, Luther 's tracts were distributed in 300,000 printed copies. The rapidity of typographical text production, as well as
4266-659: The place where most government letters were written and laws were copied within a kingdom. The rooms of the chancery often had walls full of pigeonholes, constructed to hold rolled-up pieces of parchment for safekeeping or ready reference. This kind of structure was a precursor to the modern bookshelf. The introduction of the printing press during the Renaissance did not impact the setup and function of these government offices significantly. Medieval paintings and tapestries often show people in their private offices handling record-keeping books or writing on scrolls of parchment . Before
4345-399: The platen, the windlass turned again to move the bed back to its original position, the tympan and frisket raised and opened, and the printed sheet removed. Such presses were always worked by hand. After around 1800, iron presses were developed, some of which could be operated by steam power . The function of the printing press was described by William Skeen in 1872: this sketch represents
4424-490: The press ". The spread of mechanical movable type printing in Europe in the Renaissance introduced the era of mass communication , which permanently altered the structure of society. The relatively unrestricted circulation of information and (revolutionary) ideas transcended borders, captured the masses in the Reformation , and threatened the power of political and religious authorities. The sharp increase in literacy broke
4503-431: The press that led to the press's invention included: manufacturing of paper , development of ink, woodblock printing , and invention of eyeglasses . At the same time, a number of medieval products and technological processes had reached a level of maturity which allowed their potential use for printing purposes. Gutenberg took up these far-flung strands, combined them into one complete and functioning system, and perfected
4582-460: The price of paper to one-sixth of parchment and then falling further. Papermaking centers reached Germany a century later. Despite this it appears that the final breakthrough of paper depended just as much on the rapid spread of movable-type printing. Codices of parchment, which in terms of quality is superior to any other writing material , still had a substantial share in Gutenberg's edition of
4661-455: The printing flatbed with the rotary motion of cylinders. Both elements were for the first time successfully implemented by the German printer Friedrich Koenig in a series of press designs devised between 1802 and 1818. Having moved to London in 1804, Koenig soon met Thomas Bensley and secured financial support for his project in 1807. Patented in 1810, Koenig had designed a steam press "much like
4740-440: The printing press: the entrepreneurial spirit of emerging capitalism increasingly made its impact on medieval modes of production, fostering economic thinking and improving the efficiency of traditional work processes. The sharp rise of medieval learning and literacy amongst the middle class led to an increased demand for books which the time-consuming hand-copying method fell far short of accommodating. Technologies preceding
4819-420: The printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million copies. In the following century, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies. European printing presses of around 1600 were capable of producing between 1,500 and 3,600 impressions per workday. By comparison, Far Eastern printing, where the back of the paper was manually rubbed to
SECTION 60
#17331054402614898-518: The printing process through all its stages by adding a number of inventions and innovations of his own: The screw press which allowed direct pressure to be applied on a flat plane was already of great antiquity in Gutenberg's time and was used for a wide range of tasks. Introduced in the 1st century AD by the Romans , it was commonly employed in agricultural production for pressing grapes for wine and olives for oil, both of which formed an integral part of
4977-501: The printing process. Printing, however, put a demand on the machine quite different from pressing. Gutenberg adapted the construction so that the pressing power exerted by the platen on the paper was now applied both evenly and with the required sudden elasticity. To speed up the printing process, he introduced a movable undertable with a plane surface on which the sheets could be swiftly changed. The concept of movable type existed prior to 15th century Europe; sporadic evidence that
5056-500: The printing speed and produced more than 40 copies a day. Printing technology reached its peak at this point. At the same time, then, as the printing press in the physical, technological sense was invented, 'the press' in the extended sense of the word also entered the historical stage. The phenomenon of publishing was born. The outstanding difference between the two ends of the Old World was the absence of screw-presses from China, but this
5135-444: The reliability of trade and led to the decline of merchant guilds and the rise of individual traders. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution , the mechanics of the hand-operated Gutenberg-style press were still essentially unchanged, although new materials in its construction, amongst other innovations, had gradually improved its printing efficiency. By 1800, Lord Stanhope had built a press completely from cast iron which reduced
5214-487: The scroll. A fourth development was the early success of medieval papermakers at mechanizing paper manufacture. The introduction of water-powered paper mills , the first certain evidence of which dates to 1282, allowed for a massive expansion of production and replaced the laborious handcraft characteristic of both Chinese and Muslim papermaking. Papermaking centres began to multiply in the late 13th century in Italy , reducing
5293-464: The sharp fall in unit costs, led to the issuing of the first newspapers (see Relation ) which opened up an entirely new field for conveying up-to-date information to the public. Incunable are surviving pre-16th century print works which are collected by many of the libraries in Europe and North America . The printing press was also a factor in the establishment of a community of scientists who could easily communicate their discoveries through
5372-489: The sheet from contact with any thing but the inked surface of the types, when the pull, which brings down the screw and forces the platten to produce the impression, is made by the pressman who works the lever,—to whom is facetiously given the title of "the practitioner at the bar.". Johannes Gutenberg 's work on the printing press began in approximately 1436 when he partnered with Andreas Dritzehn—a man who had previously instructed in gem-cutting —and Andreas Heilmann, owner of
5451-403: The sheet to be printed is laid. The frisket is a slender frame-work, covered with coarse paper, on which an impression is first taken; the whole of the printed part is then cut out, leaving apertures exactly corresponding with the pages of type on the carriage of the press. The frisket when folded on to the tympans, and both turned down over the forme of types and run in under the platten, preserves
5530-492: The spelling and syntax of these vernaculars, in effect 'decreasing' their variability. This rise in importance of national languages as opposed to pan-European Latin is cited as one of the causes of the rise of nationalism in Europe. A third consequence of popularization of printing was on the economy. The printing press was associated with higher levels of city growth. The publication of trade-related manuals and books teaching techniques like double-entry bookkeeping increased
5609-523: The storage of frequently used files and documents. Storage space : an open or enclosed support space for the storage of commonly used office supplies. Print and copy area : an open or enclosed support space with facilities for printing, scanning and copying. Mail area : an open or semi-open support space where employees can pick up or deliver their mail. Pantry area : an open or enclosed support space where employees can get refreshments and where supplies for visitor hospitality are kept. Break area :
5688-580: The use of large, open floor plans and desks that faced supervisors. As a result, in 1915, the Equitable Life Insurance Company in New York City introduced the "Modern Efficiency Desk" with a flat top and drawers below, designed to allow managers an easy view of the workers. This led to a demand for large square footage per floor in buildings, and a return to the open spaces that were seen in pre–industrial revolution buildings. However, by
5767-509: The various techniques employed (imprinting, punching and assembling individual letters) did not have the refinement and efficiency needed to become widely accepted. Tsuen-Hsuin and Needham, and Briggs and Burke suggest that the movable-type printing in China and Korea was rarely employed. Gutenberg greatly improved the process by treating typesetting and printing as two separate work steps. A goldsmith by profession, he created his type pieces from
5846-700: The word in 1395 to mean a place where business is transacted in The Canterbury Tales . As mercantilism became the dominant economic theory of the Renaissance , merchants tended to conduct their business in buildings that also sometimes housed people doing retail sales, warehousing, and clerical work. During the 15th century, the population density in many cities reached a point where merchants began to use stand-alone buildings to conduct their business. A distinction began to develop between religious, administrative/military, and commercial uses for buildings. The first purpose-built office spaces were constructed in
5925-558: Was critical for producing durable type that produced high-quality printed books and proved to be much better suited for printing than all other known materials. To create these lead types, Gutenberg used what is considered one of his most ingenious inventions, a special matrix enabling the quick and precise molding of new type blocks from a uniform template. His type case is estimated to have contained around 290 separate letter boxes, most of which were required for special characters, ligatures , punctuation marks , and so forth. Gutenberg
6004-539: Was in universal use in Europe". In Italy, a center of early printing, print shops had been established in 77 cities and towns by 1500. At the end of the following century, 151 locations in Italy had seen at one time printing activities, with a total of nearly three thousand printers known to be active. Despite this proliferation, printing centres soon emerged; thus, one third of the Italian printers published in Venice . By 1500,
6083-514: Was sold to Gerding Edlen in 2013 for $ 76.6 million. The building was later sold in 2015 to a subsidiary of Great Eagle Holdings for $ 124.4 million. CIM Group purchased the building for $ 151 million in 2019; it was the third time the Dexter Horton Building had been sold in a five-year period. On June 11, 2024 the building was sold again at a steep discount to King County as CIM went into default. Pegasus Coffee opened in
6162-526: Was the Brunswick Building, built in Liverpool in 1841. The invention of the safety elevator in 1852 by Elisha Otis enabled the rapid upward escalation of buildings. By the end of the 19th century, larger office buildings frequently contained large glass atriums to allow light into the complex and improve air circulation. By 1906, Sears , Roebuck, and Co. had opened their headquarters operation in
6241-420: Was then applied to the text evenly. One damp piece of paper was then taken from a heap of paper and placed on the tympan. The paper was damp as this lets the type 'bite' into the paper better. Small pins hold the paper in place. The paper is now held between a frisket and tympan (two frames covered with paper or parchment). These are folded down, so that the paper lies on the surface of the inked type. The bed
#260739