2014年12月11日 星期四

Corporate Campus 1950s

<p><strong>Bell Labs</strong><br />This mirrored glass building, designed by Eero Saarinen and completed in 1962, closed in 2007. It sat abandoned until August 2013, when Somerset Development bought the structure and its grounds from Alcatel-Lucent for $27 million and hired Alexander Gorlin to renovate it into a mixed-use retail complex.</p>


85 Years/85 Ideas

How Facebook's Corporate Campus Is Tied to General Motors in 1956
By  
Few expenses were spared by GM CEO Alfred Sloan, as seen in this spiral staircase
Courtesy General Motors
Few expenses were spared by GM CEO Alfred Sloan, as seen in this spiral staircase
1956 Eero Saarinen builds General Motors a compound in the suburbs.
Credit the knowledge worker with the rise of the corporate campus. Beginning in the 1940s, enterprising companies such as General Motors (GM), Bell Labs, and General Electric (GE) began building separate complexes for their R&D departments away from their urban headquarters. Modeled on the college campus, these labs were set on manicured quads. Moving researchers and scientists away from blue-collar factories, Louise Mozingo writes inPastoral Capitalism, elevated their stature as innovators who could create new sources of profit. Soon, with more workers living in suburbs, companies relocated their entire operations to these campuses, leaving city skyscrapers behind. The General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Mich., created in 1956 by Eero Saarinen (who would also design iconic buildings for IBM (IBM), Deere (DE), and other giants), is considered the earliest and most influential corporate estate and was named a National Historic Landmark in October 2014.
Not every company could afford a starchitect, and the trend also yielded bland, boxy eyesores just off highway exits. Decades later, Silicon Valley giants Google(GOOG) and Facebook (FB) supercharged the approach, creating small cities with so many amenities—free meals, gyms, dry cleaning—that workers resist ever going home.
Iconic Company HQs
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  • <p><strong>Facebook</strong><br />The center of Facebook’s campus in Menlo Park, Calif., built in 2012, is called Hacker Square.</p>
    Photograph by Herb Lingl/Aerial Archives
    Facebook
    The center of Facebook’s campus in Menlo Park, Calif., built in 2012, is called Hacker Square.
  • <p><strong>Bell Labs</strong><br />The AT&T Bell Laboratories built its 1942 campus in Holmdel, N.J., which became the site of such inventions as the transistor, a building block of digital products.</p>
    Photograph by Michael Moran/OTTO
    Bell Labs
    The AT&T Bell Laboratories built its 1942 campus in Holmdel, N.J., which became the site of such inventions as the transistor, a building block of digital products.
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