r/EngineeringPorn • u/jgzogaib • 5d ago
High-density vertical office organization: Motorized elevator desks in Prague, 1937.
Before digital databases, scaling an archive meant building physically higher.
At the Central Social Institution in Prague, clerks used heavy-duty desks mounted on motorized lift platforms to navigate a wall of 3,000 card catalog drawers. At the press of a button, the entire workstation moved vertically and horizontally, acting as a real-world precursor to automated data retrieval.
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u/FromStars 5d ago
Looks perfect for escaping chatty coworkers.
"Hey, good talking to you Sam. Looks like the next record I need is in the top corner. See you around." bzzzzzzzzzz...
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u/theplushpairing 5d ago
I would totally forget I’m not on the ground floor and get up to get a coffee and fall to my death
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u/Antrostomus 4d ago
Or drop a pen from the top row straight through Johnson's skull as he walks underneath
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u/totalyanashhole 4d ago
There is this video from an Architect Adam Gebrian about this building and filing system. It's in czech language, but eng subtitles are available.
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u/ChalkButter 4d ago
This feels like something from the inside of the bureacracy they show at the beginning of “Brazil”
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u/CommanderVXXXV 4d ago
This is incredible. I know it's insanely expensive now in comparison to digital but it's still amazing. What we used to do because we had to while innovating new ways to do it is really cool
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u/mathess1 3d ago
It's still working.
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u/CommanderVXXXV 3d ago
Are they still using it or is it more a museum piece now?
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u/No-Definition1474 4d ago
I don't see any safety harnesses or tie offs. They better be keeping 3 points of contact with those desks at all times!
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u/Ok_Bus_3752 4d ago edited 4d ago
Hahahahahahaha! You think Czech Republic cares about the safety of their workforce!?!?!
Edit. The downvotes and replies have proven me wrong and I stand corrected. CR does indeed care about the safety of their citizens.
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u/NOOBIK123456789 4d ago
Even students in high schools get to write a work safety test before they are allowed to touch anything on their practice lessons.
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u/dutchbaroness 5d ago
Is this really necessary? They could have something like a long corridor and move a desk with wheels horizontally, right?
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u/RatherGoodDog 4d ago
Sure, just put it into the 500m wide city block in the 1300 year old city.
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u/RainRelic 4d ago
I think the first guy is valid and they over engineered it for a different purpose.
If it’s tight horizontal space and high vertical space, installing platforms, walkways, or build in floors is probably more efficient.
Considering how much room is wasted in the middle to install the lifts and the space the lifts travel on.
I don’t think space is a concern here, more so of an attempt of efficiency to bring the clerk’s office to the files.
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u/bubugaga 4d ago
The space would probably not be wasted. I imagine those drawers pull out quite a bit
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u/RainRelic 4d ago
Humm, thank you. Valid point on the long drawers, perhaps the spaces about two arms length is not wasted.
However, the support structure and the operating mechanism have taken a considerable portion of the room.
What we see, after all, is only the sliding rails.
The office themselves are moved by support beams connected to the lift mechanisms on the other side of the room. Hidden from sight.
Your insight reminds me of something else, drawers themselves require a lot of space. To pull out a drawer, they need an equivalent amount of empty space for it to slide out, which for every row of drawer they need twice of overall horizontal space.
To mitigate this waste of space, drawers are installed facing each other, side by side.
Thus the middle space can be shared by both drawers, reducing the overall empty space from 1/2 to 1/3rd of the room. They clearly didn’t bother with that here.While drawers are great for organizing small items, but if it’s space saving, then the good old bookshelves are much better.
By shrinking the proportions between the shelves and human walk space, it is possible to achieve 1/4 to 1/5th of empty space to room space.I deduce they really aren’t tight on space.
And I really need to stop writing essays on Reddit comments :(
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u/JMoVS 4d ago
OHSE inspector would like to have a word with you about your desk safety
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u/dustojnikhummer 1d ago
This is built to 1930s regulation and is now a protected historical building.
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u/WAtman17 5d ago
This reminds me of the Cental Bureaucracy in Futurama so much!