But stories about organizations are also about signals. An incredible amount of stories told about organizations can be classified as signal interpretation. Call it hermeneutics if you like fancy language. Reading the signs. If you go to a company as a consultant, and this is something interesting, as I was a consultant for many years, and consultants after a while hone their skills  through experience. You go into a company and you read all sorts of signs, like the architecture. Now that’s a very interesting sign to read. Maybe John or others will talk about this. The way desks are laid out. The configuration of offices. And everyone in a tacit way reads the signs. What sort of organization is this? 

  There’s a play called the Marat Sade* . And one of the actors playing Corday comes to Paris and asks, “What 

ARCHITECTURE CAN TELL STORIES

   Stories don’t have to be expressed in words to have a narrative thrust. There are other kinds of stories. Architecture can tell stories. I certainly believe that. The configuration of office space also tells stories. Something I have spoken about and others have too. If you go to Harvard Business School, a place that’s great fun to kick. (Laughter) I work there now and then. They’ve got some money. What a surprise! They have more money than God! (Laughter) They put up a new building, Shad Hall, for the faculty. And it’s very interesting. You go into Shad Hall, and there is absolutely no public space. Every person has a private office. There is absolutely no public place. If you have to meet people, you have to meet outside the building, because when you go in, it’s just offices and columns. And what happens is, occasionally the professors have meet with consultants, and so they forced the dean to put in a little coffee stand in the lobby. A tiny little place, because people had absolutely nowhere to go. There was no common space. Now that’s a tremendous message that Harvard is sending to anyone who comes into that building. A tremendous message. I mean, here they are, trying to teach teamwork in organizations. (Laughter) And there was no commonality. So architecture is a story also. 

   There are a number of people I know who are working on this whole subject. Buildings as signs and information about the organization. It’s a very interesting subject. 

Participant: I have a similar story in a design conference which will remain nameless. But these people are designers. The coffee pot was on one side, and the coffee cups were on the other side, a long way away. (Laughter) And it’s been repeated.