The Metropolitan Corporate Centre: Reinvention of the Medieval City-State

Abstract

Too often the future of organisations is explored as if they exist in a ‘non-place urban realm’, in the urban philosopher Mel Webber’s famous phrase of the 1960s. In the technical jargon, economies and companies have become increasingly de-spatialised. They tend to live in information networks and undifferentiated airport cities spanning the globe. No matter what the country of origin, specific global icons permeate multinational companies - glass air-conditioned buildings, business suits, sleek cars, massive hotels, and corporate jets.