ABSTRACT
In 1971, the Italian architecture collective Superstudio published “Twelve Cautionary Tales for Christmas,” better known as “Twelve Ideal Cities,” in which illustrated novels investigate the relationship between mankind and architecture as a tool of political and economic oppression. The constant improvement of automation, coupled with global neoliberal policies, have made work necessary to the survival of the individual, thus allowing it to become an instrument of order and control. But more than a simple container of such technologies, the architecture of the workplace and its principles of spatial organization themselves act as mechanisms of value creation and control. Since its birth in the late nineteenth century, the white-collar workplace has constantly improved its efficiency in response to specific ecosystems defined, among others, by technological innovations, workers’ struggle, and design principles. The distinction between production and reproduction in the industrial era erected the household as a haven, a space exempted from any productive quality.
