To decorate your office, do you prefer a Van Gogh or a Keith Haring?

What if your boss put a painting on that little piece of wall you pass every day at the office, would you prefer a Monet or a Kandinsky? This funny question was asked to a sample of 1,300 Ile-de-France employees working in a company with more than 10 employees. The survey, conducted by the French Institute of Public Opinion (Ifop) for the Lyon Land Company, allows us to find out whether beautiful offices make good employees.

Through the report of more than 70 pages, we learn for example that 83% of Ile-de-France residents find their colleagues “beautiful” while 2% of them find them “very ugly”. But Ifop especially notes that they are very sensitive to the decoration and architecture of their offices. And I might as well tell you that they have luxury tastes…

What painting in my office?

In terms of painting, for example, the institute offered several masterpieces. Between Wheat field with cypresses the Vincent Van Gogh (1889), Poppies by Monet (1873), Transverse Line or Blue Painting de Vassily Kandisky (1923), Untitled (Dance) by Keith Haring (1987), street art or simply nothing at all, the employees don’t seem to hesitate too much. 24% of respondents prefer the work of Van Gogh, followed closely by Monet (22%), although Ifop suggests that it is a painting by Manet… Long live impressionism.

Taken separately, the two Kandiskys achieve 15 and 11%; which still makes 26% of those questioned opting for one of the Russian painter’s paintings. The neo-impressionist work of Keith Haring (13%) and the “street art” style (9%) bring up the rear. Finally, 6% judge that it is better to have a wall without a painting.

Read the file
Vincent Van Gogh: ten days in the life of an artist who changed the perception of the world

The Haussmannian, number one

And in terms of architecture? The survey compared several types of buildings: Haussmann style, contemporary and towers. The results give victory to the architecture imagined by Baron Haussmann at the end of the 19th century.^e century. Ile-de-France residents give it an average score of 7.4 out of 10. The beige facades, with balconies with dark gray barriers and domed roofs receive the best score in the survey with an 8 out of 10. A clear result, as if Parisian aesthetics were forever linked to this era and, therefore, to this architecture.

Because the contemporary style keeps a good distance from the Haussmannian style. The various buildings proposed by the Ifop survey received a 6.2 out of 10, or 1.2 points less than the Haussmann style. To tell the truth, we can’t imagine a single building proposed in the survey photos in a Parisian district…

The relationship of Ile-de-France residents with the towers has not always been simple. And it is confirmed in this survey. The 1,300 employees surveyed had to rate and decide between the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the heart of La Défense in Paris and the New York district of the World Trade Center. The average score is 6 out of 10. Only 0.2 points less than the contemporary style, but still 1.4 less than the Haussmann style. In detail, the La Défense district receives the worst score: only 5.4 out of 10. Is it because Ile-de-France residents see the “clichéd look” of the workplace there? In any case, neither the Burj Khalifa (828 m) nor the One World Trade Center tower (541 m) could stand in the Ile-de-France sky; the Triangle Tower and its 180 m has already caused a lot of ink to flow. No serious promoter risks such an adventure in Paris today. To the delight of a majority of employees who, according to Ifop, are very classic in their tastes.