I'm wondering why people even considered that kind of office layout. Didn't anyone of them read the famous books of Tom DeMarco, such as "Peopleware"? Decades

I'm wondering why people even considered that kind of office layout. Didn't anyone of them read the famous books of Tom DeMarco, such as "Peopleware"? Decades ago, DeMarco argued (IMHO very convincingly) for closed rooms to cut distractions - at least for thought workers. DeMarco even concluded that telephones are bad, especially if in the company's culture it's not socially accepted that people are free to ignore a phone call.