Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler
- Interim Chair and Associate Professor // Art and Design // Rueff School
- Interim Chair and Associate Professor // Art History // Rueff School
- Interim Chair and Associate Professor / Art & Design / Art History, Design History // Rueff School of Design, Art, and Performance
- Affiliated Faculty // Critical Disability Studies // SIS
Research Focus
History of design; disability and design
Office and Contact
Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler is an Associate Professor of Design History and Interim Chair of the Department of Art and Design in the Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Design, Art, and Performance. Her 2021 book Open Plan: A Design History of the American Office focuses on the material, political, social, and technological problems that workers and organizations encountered as the open plan transformed from a progressive design solution into a mainstream design concept in the late 20th century. In addition to her monograph, Dr. Kaufmann-Buhler is also the author of a number of articles in prominent journals that have explored various topics from the care of office plants to the design interface of cubicles and computers. She was the co-editor of Design History Beyond the Canon, a collection which was developed out of an NEH summer institute (2015) at Drexel University which explored non-canonical approaches to teaching the history of design. In addition to her writing, Dr. Kaufmann-Buhler’s research has been featured in mainstream publications and media outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Scientific American, New York Magazine, and the BBC. She earned her PhD in Design Studies from the University of Wisconsin Madison, her MA in the History of Design from the Royal College of Art and Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and her BA in American Culture from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.
Selected Publications:
Books
Kaufmann-Buher, Jennifer Open Plan: A Design History of the American Office (Bloomsbury, 2021). https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350044753.
Kaufmann-Buhler, Jennifer, Victoria Rose Pass, and Christopher Wilson. Design History Beyond the Canon. 1st ed. Edited by Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler, Victoria Pass, and Christopher Wilson. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2019. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350051614.
Articles
Kaufmann-Buhler, Jennifer. “Computing the Cubicle: Design for the High-Tech Office, 1970-1990.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 43, no. 3 (July 2021): 6–21. https://doi.org/10.1109/MAHC.2021.3088751.
Kaufmann-Buhler, Jennifer. “Designing for Maintenance: Plant Care Technology in the Office.” Technology and Culture 63, no. 4 (October 2022): 1033–56. https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2022.0156.
Kaufmann-Buhler, Jennifer. “If the Chair Fits: Sexism in American Office Furniture Design.” Journal of Design History 32, no. 4 (December 2019): 375–91. https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/epz022.
Kaufmann-Buhler, Jennifer. “Progressive Partitions: The Promises and Problems of the American Open Plan Office.” Design and Culture 8, no. 2 (May 2016): 205–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/17547075.2016.1189308.
Kaufmann-Buhler, Jennifer. “Working in the Electronic Garden: The Visual Rhetoric of Herman Miller’s Action Office.” Technology and Culture 63, no. 4 (October 2022): 927–34. https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2022.0151.