Desk

A desk is a furniture piece for writing and office work with drawers and shelves for storage of pens, paper or files.

History

The Secretary

Main article: Secretary

In a broad interpretation of the term or a functional analysis of the secretary or writing desk in the private and the desk ( standing desk ) of office offices can be considered as a precursor of the desk. A variation was the portable console Bureau and the secretary or writing desk. Among the oldest examples include desk desks with a dresser as a base and occasionally equipped with a flat top. At the end of the 17th century, the Bureau a relatively long, elegant table with three drawers flat came on plat, directly under the table top. This desk was complemented by a narrow cabinet next to it, the Cartonniere. In the second half of the 18th century, the cylinder Bureau, whose compartments and drawers were located behind a run in half-or quarter-circle roller shutter appeared. The roll-top desk was after 1760 one of the most important furniture of the Paris art carpenter. At the same time there were already today, meaning the three-part cabinet with drawer flat part in the middle and reaching further down side compartments or drawers.

The Secretary and the smaller version for women that Bonheur du jour were, and especially popular in the 18th and 19th century luxury properties in France. They were placed in private libraries and salons, and served the representation.

The modern desk

The desk in its present form dates back to the service society, defined as a functional piece of furniture workplace. Early copies around the steel pipe model by Marcel Breuer for Thonet in the 1920s already have the one-sided drawer unit, but do not correspond to the large dimensions, which were required by equipment of office communication. For reasons of occupational health and safety for used in everyday work desks numerous requirements in terms of size, adjustability in height, type of surface defined (such as in the screen work legislation from the year 1996). In Japan, for example, put some employees care to leave an empty desk at the end of a working day.

Materials of Construction

In past centuries desks were manufactured almost exclusively from solid wood. Since the invention of chipboard the use of material combinations for desks is more common. Depending on requirements, a table frame made ​​of steel or aluminum along a medium density fiberboard fitted to a desk. The table tops are also provided with a melamine finish or other finishes to ensure the scratch resistance, water resistance and ease of maintenance.

Other suitable as a desk furniture

• In private households in the kitchen or living room table is often used as a desk.
• The desk in the form of the Secretary occurs today barely.
• High desk or writing desk, a table with a sloping surface, which is used to read and write.

Height adjustable desks

Nowadays offered because of recent findings in ergonomics, more and more height-adjustable desks. These offer the user the ability to adjust the working height individually according to the respective requirements. The resulting therefrom entertainment and load change activates the cardiovascular system and improves circulation. Occupational health and physiological studies showed that postural discomfort are reduced by the different time- balanced loads, as well as lack of concentration and performance degradation can be prevented. This effect is commonly referred to as sit-stand dynamics.

Importance

Often the writing is particularly associated by philosophers and writers with their work, regardless of where it was written. The study by Ernst Bloch is publicly available, as well as that of Ernst Jünger. The desk of Theodor Adorno is publicly exhibited even as a memorial in a glass box in Frankfurt.

Adorno - monument of Vadim Zakharov in Frankfurt

Desk of the writer Ernst Jünger in the disciple house in Wilflingen