offices. Most of us have spent sometimes many, many, many hours inside of them. Maybe you work in one.

Maybe you go to one to get your taxes done. Maybe you visit your doctor in a corporate office space.

You know the type of place I'm talking about.

It usually has sprawling corridors, overhead fluorescent lights, and office park.

The corporate office space has become the epitome of a kind of middle manager American

Malays.

After America won the Cold War, we were on top of the world.

And what did victory look like?

Cubicles, fluorescent overhead lighting, a stultifying bureaucracy.

One of the latest odes to the office is the Apple TV show Severance.

In Severance, the aesthetics of their office space combines a kind of 1960s mainframe aesthetic with a 2020s black mirror vibe. The office

itself, the Lumen Industries headquarters, it's one of the biggest characters in the show.

It is an office space worthy of Terry Gilliam.

It is absurd and funny and terrifying all at once.

A space made to control and confuse.

Offices were not always seen this way.

In fact, the Lumen Industries building is based on a very real place.

A place that was once seen as a kind of corporate utopia.

And not just seen that way.

A place that was one of the most productive, important workplaces in all of American history.

So what happened?

When did the office become synonymous with a kind of dystopia? I'm Dylan Theris, and this is Atlas of Skira, a celebration of the

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