History of Office Space

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The word office is derived from the Latin word, officium. The word originally referred to a department or the theoretical concept of a formal position. It could also refer to a group of people, which would be equivalent to an office staff in today's workforce.

Roman society was responsible for creating a very sophisticated bureaucracy for its time, and which would not be equaled for centuries. After the fall of Rome, the educational system suffered and many people did not learn to read and write. Therefore, illiteracy was quite common. However the eastern world maintained a more complex culture. This culture flourished under both Byzantine and Islamic rule.

Centuries ago, it was common for a palace or large temple to contain a room that was set aside for the purpose of keeping scrolls and where scribes could conduct their work. These rooms were not referred to as offices per se, but were often referred to as libraries. The reason for the designation of the word libraries is probably because scrolls were often associated with literature. These "libraries" were actually the equivalent of the description of an office today because business was conducted in those rooms, such as management functions that included writing and signing treaties and edicts. Record keeping was also conducted in such locations; the locations were not for pleasure reading of fiction as may take place in a library today. However, the office and the library were very much the same before the printing press was invented because books were read or written at the same location that accounting practices and writings took place.

A typical office during medieval times was the location where government letters and reports were written. The office walls would contain pigeonholes that would hold rolled up parchments. This idea was actually the forerunner of the bookshelf.

These types of offices did not change much during the Renaissance era even with the arrival of the early printing press. Paintings and tapestries of pre-industrial times illustrate people in private offices working on books or writing on scrolls. It is evident that record keeping and writing occurred in these types of offices during the early times. Thus the office developed to meet the needs of the people through different eras and has developed from a simple room in a castle or temple into a high-tech office complex, oftentimes in a modern high-rise structure, in today's world.
 

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