There’s something that really bothered me in fountainhead
why di d Howard Roark have to rentt an apartment AND an office? couldnt he work from home or sleep in his office? why pay double rent, double phone bills, electric bills etc.? :dough:
I have not read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged, but perhaps it could be a matter of psychology? It does wonders for one’s concentration and focus if one has an area specifically used for work related activities.
Plus, if you have money, why not have it all? Staying at home and working all day everyday may make one a little stir crazy, and if one chooses to live in the office the culinary choices will be extremely limited (lacking a stove and all).
I have not read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged, but perhaps it could be a matter of psychology? It does wonders for one’s concentration and focus if one has an area specifically used for work related activities.
Plus, if you have money, why not have it all? Staying at home and working all day everyday may make one a little stir crazy, and if one chooses to live in the office the culinary choices will be extremely limited (lacking a stove and all).
:dough: I don’t think that Roark had any problems with focus or concentration.
I would guess that it was a result of the times. There was no internet for advertising. Business was business and home was home. Also, it might be considered a little unprofessional to meet clients in your studio apartment.
Especially since Roark lived in a slum of an apartment in his early years before the Enright House. Also Roark DID work at home on occasion - recall when Dominique would come over to submit herself to him, he would be at a table in the corner of the apartment hunched over drawings. But also consider in those days, those slum apartments likely wouldn’t even have phone lines! Roark needed to have a phone for his business.
I have not read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged,
you haven’t? well, you don’t know what you’re missing!
I don’t know how he didn’t go crazy in that office all day waiting for a phone call… I mean, couldn’t he have the phone calls forwarded to his home? so what if there’s no internet… and they don’y have to meet in the studio or the slum, they could meet over a cup of coffe in a starbucks or something. Even in a fancy restourunt it would still be cheaper than renting an office…
I cannot stress this enough: remember the context.
The Fountainhead is set in the 1920s, maybe reaching into the 30s. Few people worked from home (as opposed to at home, meaning taking work home from the office). Ayn Rand probably wouldn’t have thought about it. She wasn’t writing a futuristic setting nor predicting the future.
Consider too that Roark had to receive clients. Receiving them at an office is businesslike and professional. At home it’s more intimate, even if one has a home office. That’s so even today. Lots of people who work from home go to their office to meet clients. There are temporary office rentals, even by the day or the hour, for such meetings for people who ahve no fixed non-home offices.
As for forwarding calls, I don’t know if such a thing was even possible in those times. It could be that it was. If local calls were routed through an operator still, it’s possible one cold leave an alternate number for the operator in the event the original number wasn’t answered. But I really don’t know. I doubt any form of automated dialing system would have, at the time, been capable of forwarding calls. answering services consisted of people taking calls and writting down messages, and required a separate number.
I mean no mockery, I swear, but I had this mental image of Roark hanging out in the street wearing a sandwich board saying “Architect for hire. No job too small.” 
AND, as I said before, in the 20s, I seriously doubt phone lines even EXISTED in the slum buildings. You can’t forward a phone number to nothingness. Even in hotels at the time, there was one operator in the building who could send and receive phone calls. They would simply take notes and put them in your box.
The Fountainhead is set in the 1920s, maybe reaching into the 30s.
1922-1940. Roark was born in 1900.