Also loosely related to this topic:

Evolution Of The Office Life: To The Cubicle, And Beyond (radio podcast)

The office has always been a stage for the meaning of white collar work. A miserable “tank” for Scrooge’s clerk, Bob Cratchit, in Dickens’ time. A corner office seat of glamour and power for Don Draper in Mad Men. Lines of desks and then angsty cubicles for millions in the computer age. Or “open plan,” with Fusbol. Now, work and the workplace are going free agent. To a corner of Starbucks. Or anywhere. And that has meaning too. This hour On Point: the history and future of white collar work and the workplace with Nikil Saval, author of “Cubed.”
Cubes, yeah. But I can't see a lot of programmers working out of coffee shops.

I do remember interviewing at a place in the 1970s that was still organized like a school classroom: desks in a grid, facing the boss at a big desk up front.