History

Centraal Beheer is an insurance company headquartered in Apeldoorn, Netherlands. They became worldly famous when their old office building was created. The era was the 60's-70's and people were trying new forms of expressive architecture. Centraal Beheer wanted to give a sense of empowerment to its employees and make them feel like at home; they wanted to accommodate its employees as much as they could. Herman Hertzberger was tasked to create the office complex that would incorporate these ideas. Construction was completed in 1972 and it became an instant hit. Hertzberger had created an office space that was very different from the traditional office building. He used box-like platforms for each office making it look collectively like a maze. Each employee had plenty of spaceand gave them the desired feeling of a community rather than a separate individual; it also made it easy to get lost.  



 



"Central Beheer by Hermann Hertzberger at GreatBuildings." GreatBuildings. Artifice, Inc. Web. 5 Feb. 2015. <http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Central_Beheer.html>.