“Apple employees agonize over every last detail in the designs of their sleek gadgets, and their future corporate home — a gleaming loop of glass that calls to mind some sort of spacecraft — has been treated no differently,” Julia Love reports for The Mercury News. “So when construction wraps up in 2016, passers-by can be forgiven for stopping to wonder: Why has the flying saucer landed next to a century-old barn?”
“Underscoring that Apple Campus 2 is at once one of Silicon Valley’s wildest sketches of the future and a portal to its past, the company has set aside a place on its state-of-the-art campus for the Glendenning Barn, named for a pioneer family whose land became a magnet for tech companies after the blooms faded from their orchards,” Love reports. “Constructed in 1916 with planks of redwood, the barn was built to last, though its founders couldn’t have foreseen all that it would withstand: the decline of local agriculture, the rise of big tech and several changes of the guard in Silicon Valley, not to mention Apple’s earth movers.”
“To protect the structure during construction, Apple carefully dismembered the barn, numbering it piece by piece — every plank, nail and crossbeam — so it can be rebuilt just as it was, says Donna Austin, president of the Cupertino Historical Society,” Love reports. “The company has even stockpiled redwood salvaged from an old grove in case any damaged planks need to be replaced.”
Read more in the full article here.