Hasta La Ideas

My first-ever job interview was with Clinique’s package design division, located in the GM building in Manhattan. My ex-girlfriend worked at Sony in the AT&T building. An art director buddy of mine worked across the street from the Chrysler building. Core77’s headquarters is located in the Singer building.

There’s so many architecturally-notable buildings we refer to by the corporate giants that erected them (even if said giants have long since vacated those buildings), which reminds us that there was a time when large corporations were practically expected to leave their mark on the world not just through their products, but through their architectural legacies.

Network World examines this phenomenon with “IBM at 100: How Big Blue helped redefine corporate architecture,” an article noting IBM’s patronage of big-name designers of the past like Saarinen, the Eameses, van der Rohe, Noguchi, and Foster. It’s a pretty fascinating read, particularly the anecdote in the second paragraph excerpted below:

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