“With Apple’s characteristic secrecy, the company hasn’t officially released the design, or announced that the architect [for its proposed new campus] is Foster + Partners, the London-based firm known for its super-sleek, elegant, exquisitely detailed buildings,” Paul Goldberger writes for The New Yorker. But images of Apple’s future home, to be built on a campus that it has taken over from Hewlett-Packard, are all over the place, because plans must be presented to the local authorities in Cupertino, who understandably are falling all over themselves with delight.”
“Foster has proposed a gargantuan glass-and-metal ring, four stories high, with a hole in the middle a third of a mile wide. The building, which will house upwards of twelve thousand employees, will have a circumference of a mile, and will be so huge that you won’t really be able to perceive its shape, except from the air,” Goldberger writes. “Like everything Foster does, it will be sleek and impeccably detailed, but who wants to work in a gigantic donut? Steve Jobs, speaking to the Cupertino City Council, likened the building to a spaceship. But buildings aren’t spaceships, any more than they are iPhones.”
“So why is Foster’s design troubling, maybe even a bit scary? The genius of the iPhone, MacBook, iPad, and other Apple products is that they are tools that function well and happen to be breathtakingly beautiful. A building is also a tool, but of a very different sort. In architecture, scale—the size of various parts of a building in proportion to one another and to the size of human beings—counts for a lot. With this building, there seems to be very little sense of any connection to human size,” Goldberger writes. “Flexibility is a hallmark of the iPad, and it counts in architecture, too, but how much flexibility is there in a vast office governed entirely by geometry? For all of Foster’s sleekness, this Apple building seems more like a twenty-first-century version of the Pentagon.”
Goldberger writes, “It’s said that Steve Jobs considers this building to be a key part of his legacy, which would be unfortunate, because it would mean that his last contribution to his company might well be his least meaningful.”
More in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This much is sure: It’s one infinite loop.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Apple’s infinite loop: Mothership campus impressive but enigmatic – September 14, 2011
Architecture critic: Apple’s new mothership campus will be a retrograde cocoon – September 12, 2011
Cupertino Mayor Wong: Apple’s mothership campus ‘definitely not a done deal’ – September 9, 2011
Apple’s mothership campus: What’s the message? – August 22, 2011
City of Cupertino posts further details on Apple mothership campus – August 13, 2011
Apple’s new ‘Mothership’ campus: Full details and gallery – June 16, 2011
Steve Jobs wanted to build mothership campus nearly three decades ago – June 14, 2011
Cupertino mayor: ‘There is no chance we are saying no’ to Apple Mothership (with video) – June 9, 2011
Steve Jobs presents giant 12,000 employee ‘spaceship’ campus to Cupertino City Council (with video) – June 8, 2011
As it is his job to criticise, his opinion if worthless
what makes you opinion worthwhile? Post your credentials, please.
Did you see Ratatouille? Remember what Anton Ego said in his restaurant critique near the end of the movie? Joe’s comment reflects a less elegant statement of that view.
Well put Joe. His contribution is a criticism. It was an empty insult which leaves one wondering what his point is. Just sounds bitter with a desire to feel good about his opinion. I don’t know that many will see his viewpoint.
And it was not Foster who proposed the ring, it was Jobs (he had the idea since early 1980s).
So this opinion not only just worthless, it is incompetent/ignorant.
With out knowing anything about the modes of travel within the building, all these comments on how useless it is are moot. There could be segways, people movers, some kinda tram system. We just don’t know. Also I’m betting the folks that need to work closely with each other will be placed close to each other.
I notice the architectural critics never posit another idea of how to get this many people into the same building.
The last I heard was that Steve Jobs did not like Dean Kamen…so no Segway’s. I also heard that he does not like Jeff Bezos either.
But imagine this…a rotating outer ring inside the entire building. It is a people mover throughout….always moving and it is magnetically levitated. 😀
Also I’m betting the folks that need to work closely with each other will be placed close to each other.
EXACTLY! This what the idiots having a conniption over this design don’t seem to understand. If, instead of one large building, Apple was to build multiple conventional buildings, would that be any more or less convenient? Of course not! But because it is being built as one structure, quick access from one part of the structure to any other part is for some reason perceived as essential. It’s not. Not at all.
Do these same architects throw a hissy fit over the Pentagon?
——RM
I think someone has been reading obscure Doris Lessing science fiction novels.
Doris Lessing is NOT obscure, except in the sense that aficionados of great literature are becoming obscure.
What a complete idiot. This building will attract people from all over the world. Not just architecture students but regular Apple fans like me. This building will make history. Goldberger not.
Ggoldberger has been making history for over 30 yesrs. have you?
Sounds like he’s been critiquing history, not making it.
Jeolousy
Horizontal elevators, maybe there is a bike track on the inside ring…ZOOM….
Portals for teleportation? Underground bullet trains? All I know is this building is freaking cool. Apple’s shaking up the architecture world just like it shakes up everything else it has its hands in.
Yes, there will also be an underground train that connects to Dulce NM, Area 51, Wright-Patterson AFB and Los Alamos.
Sooo, Goldberger is sore about this? What does he want? A square tower? Sorry dude, perhaps you are happy with a beige computer box but if you haven’t noticed, Apple does things differently.
Wonder what whiny thoughts he had about Apple’s glowing cube at the Fifth Ave store?
Another critic/analysis who is not thinking different.
We’ll see.
It would be cool to have little round Cupertino-pellet Apple Stores all around the country. If Verizon can buy land and build its own separate stores just being a middle-man, then Apple could build their own little mini-spaceship stores with trees and
park benches inside…Gore would be delighted and could claim it was his idea to be so green. If women were straight lines, then men would have no interest…curves are in…doughnuts?…maybe.
I am an architect, and in my opinion architectural critics should always be taken with a grain of salt.
If the structure looked like a wrecked spaceship, partly hurried in the ground with demolished looking pieces scattered around the site, then it might get rave reviews from architectural “critics”.
+1; now ‘critics’ all of sudden can not stand minimalism, and can even find something ‘scary’ in four-level building. Sorry, but they are delusional.
Litle people with no credentials are always ready to gripe about the opinions of those in authority. Paul Goldberger has the right, as the world’s preeninent architectural critic, to publish his opinions in the magazine that pays him to publish his opinions. Why do you object to people having opinions that differ from yours? Show us your credentials, please.
You protest too much tflint. Come on now, confess – you are goldberger using a false name. Besides that, who do you think you are? Little people (2t’s) indeed!
“Litle (sic) people”? “…those in authority”? What planet are you living on and who made you an arbiter of the importance of people or the validity of credentials? To the extent that the building is art, it is the public’s job to perceive it, assimilate it, and critique it. Mr. Goldberger’s opinion matters not at all. It’s nobody’s job to tell the public what they think, or may think about anything. Please take your inflated ego, and your fan-boyism for Mr. Goldberger elsewhere.
Credentials? I have more credentials than Paul does simply for bothering to examine the campus in more depth than “OMG A CIRCLE”.
How can you even kind of take him seriously after he writes this gem(let alone anything else he wrote)?
“But buildings aren’t spaceships, any more than they are iPhones.”
Really, Paul? Somebody needs to tell this man that an awful lot of buildings actually are shaped like an iPhone, aka, shaped like a rectangle.
Credentials indeed.
1. Your lack of spelling credentials make your comments hilarious, but kind of worthless.
2. “World’s preeninent (LOLsic; see 1.) architectural critic”? Do they hand out a crown when they award that title? He’s a preservation hack, which explains his anti-modern bias. He’s a critic, one of thousands.
3. Re: credentials to critique – Steve Jobs has created more beautiful, functional things on the can than Goldberger has created in his life. If we’re talking credentials, I’ll take Jobs’ *creation* over Goldberger’s *trolling* any day.
It’s obvious you and your horrible spelling have stumbled into the comment section of the wrong site. Don’t let the door hit you where the big guy split you.
Did you see the movie or read Ayn Rand’s book, the Fountainhead?
totally Elsworth Toohey
Mr. Goldberger is much more accustomed to buildings that are designed vertically due to the lack of land in New York. But those skyscrapers are not models of mobility to the occupants. They need lots of elevators, the taller the building, the more elevators. There are a lot of alternatives to elevators on a horizontally designed office building. Let’s wait and see what Foster & Partners come up with before condemning the concept.
And, any skyscraper is much more scary than a laid down, horizontal, no-more-than-four-floors, non-intimidating (as Jobs described it) building. Mr. Goldberger is totally inadequate with his criticism.
Can’t say I agree with him on the appearance, which I like very much.
With Foster’s award-winning airport credentials, I reckon access and internal transit arrangements will likely be state of the art.
And the low-energy and green aspects to the site development really deserve applause – or at least respect.
It’s ‘scary’ and ‘troubling’ how stupid these architecture critics are.
Despite having a circumference of a mile, the ring shape gives it a jawdroppingly small footprint for something that can house 12,000 employees. This also allows it to be quite vertically short, so it doesn’t tower over the skyline like an eyesore. The large amount of glass allows it to be naturally lit for the most part during the day. It replaces a whole complex of buildings, and much of the area will be re-forested as a result.
So yeah, it’s just a big ugly circle governed by geometry and it doesn’t factor in any other considerations. It has no conceivable purpose, it’s really nothing but vanity project for Steve Jobs.
P.S.
That last paragraph was sarcasm. I know everybody with an I.Q. above 50 realizes that, but I just thought I’d point it out for the benefit of very “special” people like Paul Goldberger.
Foster+ are also the architects for Spaceport America in New Mexico. When the illustrations of their design were made public they were met with much public scorn and to be honest it wasn’t what I was expecting either.
But having watched the construction of Spaceport America take place for the last year the design philosophy is becoming more clear.
The facility is going to be a beautiful structure housing aircraft and spacecraft while not being a jarring visual distraction from the surrounding desert.
To quote Doonesbury:
A critic knows the price but not the value.
https://picasaweb.google.com/faulknerstudios/SpaceportAmericaConstructionAndEvents
“there seems to be very little sense of any connection to human size”
Using this critical yardstick, the cathedral of Notre Dame was a bad idea as well.
So, the bad analyst spirit that is no longer inhabiting John C. Dvorak’s body has moved over to Paul Goldberger?
A revolutionary beehive of activity building.
It’s simple: Goldberger’s a pussy. He wanted to get his name associated with this epic project, but wants to protect his snooty reputation by not appearing like a SJ sycophant.
The fact is that Apple is conducting particle acceleration work for the iPad Mr Goldberger is going to want in 2020. So keep your views to yourself, Goldy.
Yeah, there’s a giant Tokamak fusion reactor under it, creating free energy. 😉
It’s ultra Trekie. The building is freaking awesome. It’s shaped to inspire creativity and futuristic design.
Sure beats the old 1800’s mansion I’m stuck working in with filthy Duct Tape all over the ancient worn out carpets. Only inspires me to want to clean something.
One is reminded of another revolutionary mega-office in the Bay Area, the AT&T campus in San Ramon. 1/2 mile long from tip-to-tip, just 4 stories high and cooled during the day by circulating air across ice cubes made from the lake (at night when power is cheap). Wildlife is everywhere and major solar is coming soon. The round part is the cafeteria, 2nd largest in the country after the Pentagon. http://tinyurl.com/6jlhydq http://tinyurl.com/3kv9xcs
Yeah, right: a low-rise, heavily-wooded, largely self-powering complex capable of housing 12,000 workers comfortably is “troubling: and “scary”. Yeah, yeah.
Why doesn’t Apple go for the “standard” high-rise, bigbox-laden super-plex looming over Cupertino like a ziggurat? Why doesn’t Apple want to live in, say, a cluster of gaudy, gigantic steel drums that can be seen from the next city over, like Oracle? Is that what it would take for these architecture critics to feel comfortable?
And this endless hand-wringing about “how will employees get around” is ridiculous. Who’s concerned about how’d they’d get around if it was eight separate buildings with the same square footage?
Here’s a clue for the self-appointed sages who are slamming these plans sight-unseen: _some_ companies are actually smart enough to co-locate complementary business functions, regardless of how many building we’re talking about. Instead of fixating on whether they’ll have segways, “slidewalks” or site-to-site transporters, can’t we assume that depts that need to interact with each other multiple times a day will not be positioned on opposite sides of the ring from one another??
At this point, Apple is so big, that some organizations need to comment on it in some way to prove, they too, exist. No different than any other site baiting consumers for attention.
If people as a whole think it’s cool, then it is cool. But more importantly, If Steve Jobs thinks it’s cool, then it it cool. His opinion has proven itself and matters more than any architecture critic today.
“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. “
Hahaha, Anton Ego, I’d recognize you anywhere.
I love almost everything designed and approved by Jobs, Ive, & Co. I scorn Apple critics who never seem to understand what the company is doing. But in this case, I agree with the critic.
Er, it wasn’t designed by Apple. Or is that your point? That it was designed by one of the worlds pre-eminent architects rather than Jony Ive makes it worthless? Actually, as a Brit, I’m quietly pleased that both Jony Ive and the architect responsible for the place where he’ll be working are both fellow countrymen. Oh, and ARM who supply the processors for all the iOS devices are British as well. Please allow me a moments quiet pride in the fact that my country can still make contributions in some areas of industry. I thank you.
Duly noted!