An Office Just Like in the Movies: A Pretty Picture or Real-World Design Solutions?

Office interiors went from bulky classics to minimalism, from ill-designed offices to the functional open space concept — and during that journey they also were playing an important role on the silver and small screen. Let’s take a look at several popular movies and TV shows and see who has a closet room and a roof garden at work, why use the retro aesthetic in office decor, where you can have bike meetings, and how furniture pieces are cast.

To the Editor: Latest Interior Design Trends

One of the most challenging tasks for an art director is designing an office for a team of people working in a creative field. The space must look lively, be full of artistic imagery, and sprinkled with recognizable furniture. The Devil Wears Prada presents us with an iconic interior design of a publishing company. In its core are the colors and the aesthetic of the 1970s, with designer lamps by leading brands scattered around the fashionable workspace. When entering the office of the Podium magazine, the employees and visitors are greeted by a snow-white table lamp on a simple cabinet. Designed by the cult designer Verner Panton for Louis Poulsen in the beginning of the 70s, the straightforward shape of this lamp is as relevant now as it was back then. There’s also a table lamp by Bourgie in the closet room filled with designer clothes for editors. This golden plastic lamp was created by Ferruccio Laviani for the Italian furniture company Kartell.

Miranda Priestly’s character and the interior of her office were inspired by Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor-in-chief, and her actual working place. Elements of the neoclassical design became the basis of the resulting look: classy flaxen walls are decorated with mouldings, panelling, and black picture frames arranged to mirror the windows. Black-and-white photos in the frames of different colors and sizes give the impression of creative chaos. The central position is taken by an octagonal mirror, and below it stands a portable coffee table with wheels by Eichholtz. Another table, with an elegant curved frame, is positioned near a window. Natural lighting and thin carpet tiles make you feel almost at home.

A turn-key office design project

Another office belonging to a large publishing company’s ambitious editor-in-chief is shown in The Proposal with Sandra Bullock. Here bright accents and simple shapes of the 1960s are softened by several design tricks. Furniture pieces with long legs, open shelves, unframed pictures and an uncluttered desk (even the PC is moved to the background in order not to take space) make for an airy and clean effect. The main accents of the workspace are the symmetrically positioned table lamps by the window and the orange armchairs in front of the desk. Equally bright flowers, bundles of books, natural materials (solid wood and natural fabrics), and a light color pallete of the curtains and the carpet make the room cozier.

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Another Life: From the Past Into the Future

Usually, the building where the filming takes place doesn’t have much to do with the interiors shown in the movie or TV show. However, there are a few cases where the architecture and its past became a part of the whole concept of the movie and stylishly complemented its visuals. Efforts of set designers and a mash-up of different styles result in timeless interior designs.

One of them inspires office designers and architects to this day. The still widely popular in post-Soviet states movie Sluzhebnyj roman (Office Romance), released in 1977, takes place in a Vienna Secession-style former revenue house in Moscow. At the time of the filming, it was used as an office by the Federal Agency for River Transportation. In the movie, the multilayered space of the old building was enriched with more modern elements. Plaster decorative mouldings, stair carpets, and traditional black-and-white square floor tiles mingle with light wood office furniture and colorful plastic lamps and phones. The design has a bit of the loft style in it represented by black geometric table frames. However, the eclectic and cluttered space doesn’t feel cramped.

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Many contemporary interiors incorporate the same design techniques that were used in that movie. Among them are the separation of working zones in an open space with storage systems, mounted chests of drawers forming a single working space with the desk, and lots of plants. One more proof that all new ideas are actually just resurfacing old concepts are the hanged white ball lamps arranged in a chaotic manner.

Another arrangement of hanged lamps, this time glossy fake-copper ones, can be found in the secretary’s office. Other up-to-date elements include a purple lamp, a cyan phone, and house plants on the bay windowsill. The trendy office of the romantic drama’s female lead was designed to account for different lighting schemes: two black-and-white hanging lamps over the desk as well as table lamps and wall lights, all stream-lined shapes. A striking contrast to the reserved color palette (muted greens, wood, and gray hues) is provided by white and red carnations and a yellow lamp that harmonizes with the geometric matte stained-glass window. Button-backed wing chairs and the front door with the same upholstery, one of the very first Apple II computers (a prototype!), and an entrance to a roof garden with geraniums — all these details not only show the high status of the head of a statistical bureau but also are quite ahead of their time. 

A design concept for an office

Another modern take on a former industrial building was quite recently created by Kristi Zea, production designer, costume designer and producer. When she was working on The Intern, she and the director Nancy Meyers went to look at headquarters of several IT startups. That helped her create a generalized look of an IT company, and, moreover, the history of the filming location was artfully woven into the plot. About the Fit’s office is located in a former address book factory where the intern Ben used to work. Now this factory is a typical loft building, with big windows, brick walls, and high exposed ceilings favored today not only by IT professionals but also by various agencies and publishing, architecture, and design companies. The open-plan office pictured in the movie includes working zones, a negotiation area, and lounges with snow-white couches and tables with metal frames. However, chairs take the center stage here. For example, during the job interview Ben is sitting in a hot pink creation of the designers Charles and Ray Eames, and near Jules’s workplace you can see transparent plastic Louis Ghost chairs, which were created for Kartell by the legendary Philippe Starck.

Design solutions for an office

Open Space: Functional Zoning

In real life the open-space concept lets designers optimally segment the space, allocate more employees to the same area, and make communication between them easier. In movies, however, this concept can also be used as an effective cinematographic technique. It can be implemented to set up mise-en-scènes, highlight the personalities of characters, and give the work a distinctive look.

In the drama film Miss Sloane, the functional open-space office is divided into several traditional zones: workspace, a negotiation area, and leisure space. The abundance of glass installations and metal parts as well as simple modern furniture and shapes not only create a business-like atmosphere but also convey ambition and assertiveness of the female lead, a famous daring lobbyist working with the US Senate. The bright red chair upholstery serves as a color accent in the otherwise reserved and monochrome interior of the US politics’ hottest business shark. Furniture pieces that catch the viewer’s eye include a light gray couch in the leisure space. Its rounded shape and smooth lines are highlighted and contrasted by its white legs, one of which also serves as the foundation for a built-in coffee table. The ultra modern interior is also softened by metal table lamps inspired by the retro aesthetic.

A design concept for an office

The office of the fictional IT giant from Silicon Valley combines all the aspects of a modern IT office: bright colors, open space, workstations, and high ceilings which made adding another floor possible. Open space allows for holding bike meetings or relaxing in one of the lounge zones.

Cubicles: Practical and Meaningful

Given that 90 percent of US employees work in an open space office, it’s not that surprising that cubicles have originated here. The basic concept was invented in 1964 by Robert Propst, who back then was the Head of Research in the furniture company Herman Miller. However, the idea was further developed by the rivals of that company, Haworth and Knoll, who thought that two or three walls would be better than one. After that, cubicles, which guaranteed confidentiality while not taking much space, became common in tech companies. Their role in movies also made them into a symbol of monotonous work routine.

One of the first people to bring cubicles to the silver screen was the French filmmaker Jacques Tati. In his movie Playtime, filmed in the middle of the 1960s, he used giant photographs of interiors and architecture in order to cut costs for some scenes. A loud crowd of fashion and tech enthusiasts accidentally sweeps up the Parisian Hulot into an endless maze of offices. As Tati himself mentioned, the characters end up looking at the already familiar architectural style tailored to encourage obedience and discipline. This take on globalization is symbolically shown in the scene where the main character looks over a multitude of numbered cubicles symmetrically arranged in one of the glass business centers. Glass, metal, plastic, and synthetic materials are the main components that visually represent the triumph of functionalism and internationalism in this sterile place.

Design solutions for an office

The most famous movie hacker of the 1990s, Thomas Anderson from The Matrix, also works in a cubicle. At that time the fast-growing high-tech style opposed traditionally plain working spaces. The double life of the character is visually emphasized by the contrasting color palette: the dull green color used in the office interior, which seems to tint the face of the ordinary employee, is replaced by the electric hue of Neo’s virtual reality, showing that the character managed to escape not only the cubicle but the system in general.

The main character of Wanted, a clerk and an heir to an assassin brotherhood, also finds himself surrounded by cubicles at work, their panel fabric a neutral gray-blue color. The interior looks quite typical: standard office chairs, built-in square ceiling lights, and bundles of papers. The central element is the fan hanging over the office drones.

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The Starring Role: Style Icons

In order to appear in a movie, renowned furniture pieces have to get cast, just like actors and actresses. For example, the set decorator for Ridley Scott’s blockbuster Prometheus chose Materia’s Omni chair to furnish Vickers’s fashionable cabin. The silver-white office chair with smooth lines was incorporated into a more home-like environment, making it more futuristic and giving it a bit of Scandinavian charm.

A turn-key office design project

When creating the office of the future for Men in Black over 20 years ago, designers also decided to focus on rounded shapes and nonlinear architecture. Now this interior doesn’t look out of place but back then the black-and-white color scheme, chrome-plated installations, neon lights, biomorphism, the legendary ball chair by the Finnish designer Eero Aarnio, and fiberglass Tulip chairs with an aluminum base by the American firm Knoll all embodied futuristic technologies. This is exactly how people saw the office of the future two decades ago.

A design concept for an office

«In movies we want to see things we don’t often encounter in real life. For example, it’s fun to look at spaceship-like interiors and biomorphic shapes shown in Men in Black. But are they actually comfortable? Very unlikely — after all, a fictional office in a movie only exists to impress and entertain for about an hour and a half. Offices in real life should be designed to stay ergonomic and relevant for the next 5–6 years.»

— Anya Sarkisiants 

Perhaps, Michael Bay shared this opinion when he was working on Transformers. He agreed to become a part of the filmmaking team after visiting Hasbro’s office and learning more about Transformers lore. The 2007 robot movie featured one of the most popular among IT people chairs — the Aeron chair by Herman Miller, an office design trendsetter. This chair is somewhat of a transformer itself: it is available in three different sizes, ensuring comfort for customers of various anthropometric characteristics.

A turn-key office design project

«Interiors in movies always look better than real-life ones. Real offices can be on the same level of impressive only when the project is delivered and a professional photographer takes pictures of the rooms. After that, the space takes on its own life — one that hasn’t been carefully staged. In movies, interiors are stylized to fit a specific purpose, while in the real world they are designed with their functions in mind, and this is manifested through different design choices and techniques. Notably, the art of cinematography nevertheless gives us insight into the fashion, trends and attitudes prevalent in the office culture at this or that time period.»

— Anya Sarkisiants