The factory as environment: social engineering and the ecology of industrial workplaces in inter-war Germany

This article examines evidence from industrial sociology, welfare work, factory architecture and production engineering to analyse how industrial and social experts gained momentum in determining the perception and handling of industrial factories. As a consequence, the factory no longer appeared as a pure unit of production but as a spatial and social ‘environment’. Sociologists and engineers faced the challenge of determining workers’ behaviour, attitudes and morale by designing their surroundings. The article analyses the relationship between modernity, social engineering and the factory in inter-war Germany and emphasises the importance of social ecology within discourses on industrial work.