If you watch AMC's excellent Mad Men, there's plenty of things to be shocked by: pregnant women smoking, scotch-fueled business meetings, and a spacious office layout that predated $75-per-square-foot Midtown Manhattan rents.

Speaking of office layouts from the '60s, the oft-unsung George Nelson designed

...the first open-plan office system, which has filled offices all over the world with island after island of L-shaped desks divided by screens. When it was put into use in 1964, the new concept seemed so futuristic that its designer, George Nelson, named it the Action Office.

Blaming Nelson for the soullessness of today's open-plan offices seems as unfair as slating Le Corbusier for other architects' sloppily designed skyscrapers, or Marcel Duchamp for every lazy piece of conceptual art. Yet his association with something that's become synonymous with corporate monotony is one reason why Nelson's role in mid-20th century design has been eclipsed by those of his peers, such as Charles and Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi and R. Buckminster Fuller.

Germany's Vitra Design Museum will be showing Nelson some love with their retrospective celebrating his 100th birthday. Opens September 13th.

via international herald tribue