Design and Architecture
Silicon Valley Gets an Edifice Complex
Tech titans in suburban Silicon Valley are trading in their regular office buildings for starchitect-designed campuses.
By Frances Anderton • • 29m ListenSilicon Valley has transformed technology and society. And they have done so in a region noted for its suburban regularity. That’s all about to change with the landing of Apple’s Norman Foster-designed “spaceship” in Cupertino and Frank Gehry’s vast building for Facebook in Menlo Park. Paul Goldberger, Paul Finch and Elina Shatkin explore the changes taking place and ask, are tech titans the new patrons of architecture?
In this episode
2 storiesThe Shape of Things to Come-- in Silicon Valley with Paul Goldberger
In this interview, Paul Goldberger describes how Silicon Valley was a place where buildings ”were a kind of “whatever,” just like clothing, which is why “the first Silicon Valley structures were to architecture as the fleece vest or hoodie is to haberdashery.”
Read the story15 min"Spaceship" Apple Campus Comes to Cupertino
This segment is about the gleaming Apple building that is going to touch down in an area of Cupertino currently filled with drab office buildings and strip malls. We learn about the architect, (Sir) Norman Foster, and how locals feel about the pending arrival of the vast glass, concrete and metal ring already dubbed the ”spaceship.”
Read the story13 min
