The Car and Corporation in the Suburbs, 1942-1983
by Ike Edgerton
Car Architecture
Today, America is a sprawling auto paradise where cars roam free. But it took nearly a century of enormous government subsidies and concentrated commercial effort to pave the way to Eden.[1] The progress of suburban corporate offices' car accommodations reflects the growth of America's car dependence. Car travel dictates several constants: car-dependent workplaces must be near a highway, they must have an access road, and they must have a parking lot.[2] But within this fixed form, corporate design changed dramatically as CEOs and architects began to realize the problems and possibilities of car dependence, turning their roads and parking lots from raw leftover space into the foundation of their buildings.[3] The evolution of corporate car-architecture in the suburbs makes for a potent expression of the progress of America's reshaping for the car's convenience.
Car Architecture
Today, America is a sprawling auto paradise where cars roam free. But it took nearly a century of enormous government subsidies and concentrated commercial effort to pave the way to Eden.[1] The progress of suburban corporate offices' car accommodations reflects the growth of America's car dependence. Car travel dictates several constants: car-dependent workplaces must be near a highway, they must have an access road, and they must have a parking lot.[2] But within this fixed form, corporate design changed dramatically as CEOs and architects began to realize the problems and possibilities of car dependence, turning their roads and parking lots from raw leftover space into the foundation of their buildings.[3] The evolution of corporate car-architecture in the suburbs makes for a potent expression of the progress of America's reshaping for the car's convenience.
Asphalt Expanses
In the 40s and 50s, the United States' car obsession was undeveloped: the government subsidized road-building and suburban construction, but the county had not yet fully committed to the mall and the highway.[4] Corporate buildings in the countryside in the 40s and 50s reflect this lack of commitment and reveal their builders' unfamiliarity with the potential of automobiles with their spare, utilitarian approach to cars. The parking lots and approach roads of the AT&T Bell Labs campus in Murray Hill, New Jersey, designed by Voorhees, Walker, Foley and Smith and completed in 1942, attest to the automotive naivete of early corporate suburban construction.[5] A hodge-podge of rectangular parking lots press in around the building complex in a random arrangement, some containing regularly spaced tree plantings, some bare.[6] The approach road to the Labs, lined with a cursory row of trees, heads straight toward the entrance across flat fields with similarly pragmatic directness.[7] This straightforward approach remained popular through most of the 1950s: the 1957 Skidmore, Owings & Merill-designed Connecticut General Life Insurance Building in Bloomfield, Connecticut continues in Bell Labs' tracks.[8] Its large, rectangular symmetrical parking lots flank the building on two sides, undisguised by tree or hill, and an approaching driver experiences a short, straight drive on an undistinguished road with the same face of the building in sight for the whole trip.[9]
In the 40s and 50s, the United States' car obsession was undeveloped: the government subsidized road-building and suburban construction, but the county had not yet fully committed to the mall and the highway.[4] Corporate buildings in the countryside in the 40s and 50s reflect this lack of commitment and reveal their builders' unfamiliarity with the potential of automobiles with their spare, utilitarian approach to cars. The parking lots and approach roads of the AT&T Bell Labs campus in Murray Hill, New Jersey, designed by Voorhees, Walker, Foley and Smith and completed in 1942, attest to the automotive naivete of early corporate suburban construction.[5] A hodge-podge of rectangular parking lots press in around the building complex in a random arrangement, some containing regularly spaced tree plantings, some bare.[6] The approach road to the Labs, lined with a cursory row of trees, heads straight toward the entrance across flat fields with similarly pragmatic directness.[7] This straightforward approach remained popular through most of the 1950s: the 1957 Skidmore, Owings & Merill-designed Connecticut General Life Insurance Building in Bloomfield, Connecticut continues in Bell Labs' tracks.[8] Its large, rectangular symmetrical parking lots flank the building on two sides, undisguised by tree or hill, and an approaching driver experiences a short, straight drive on an undistinguished road with the same face of the building in sight for the whole trip.[9]
Both Bell Labs and Connecticut General Life, with their unabashed parking lots and unimpressive approach sequences, exemplify the way corporations treated cars before the 1960s. Appreciating neither the car's land-gobbling demand for storage space nor its capacity for dramatic sight-seeing, these suburban corporate outposts treated cars with minimally-considered utilitarian directness. The approach really did result from a failure to understand the full automotive implications of their suburban relocation: both Bell and General Life had to expand their parking facilities soon after their construction when many more employees than expected drove to work instead of taking public transit.[10]
Car Sensitivity: Hidden Lots, Winding Roads
As the years passed, Americans grew ever more entwined with their cars, building 41,000 miles of federally funded highway between 1956 and 1970 and devoting two thirds of the land area of downtown Los Angeles and Detroit to car storage and movement by the 1960s.[11] The ubiquity of cars bred a distaste for the sight of the car at rest and a more intimate understanding of cars in motion. By the 1970s, corporations were using these years of experience at the wheel to inform the design of their corporate buildings, hiding their parking lots and extending their approach drives into excursions. The Pepsico and Texaco corporate estates, built on the Platinum Mile in Harrison, New York in 1970 and 1977, respectively, illustrate this phenomenon.[12] The Pepsico building, designed by popular corporate architect Edward Durell Stone Sr. in the late '60s, pushes its parking lots far away from its offices, forming them into an oval ring of blacktop hidden from onlookers behind thick groves of trees.[13] This interest in hiding parked cars coincides with an increased interest in making the approach to the building dramatic: a visitor drives on a long curving double-road toward the ostentatious front of the building, and can use the ring-road that provides parking lot access to view the building and its landscaped surroundings from all angles.[14]
As the years passed, Americans grew ever more entwined with their cars, building 41,000 miles of federally funded highway between 1956 and 1970 and devoting two thirds of the land area of downtown Los Angeles and Detroit to car storage and movement by the 1960s.[11] The ubiquity of cars bred a distaste for the sight of the car at rest and a more intimate understanding of cars in motion. By the 1970s, corporations were using these years of experience at the wheel to inform the design of their corporate buildings, hiding their parking lots and extending their approach drives into excursions. The Pepsico and Texaco corporate estates, built on the Platinum Mile in Harrison, New York in 1970 and 1977, respectively, illustrate this phenomenon.[12] The Pepsico building, designed by popular corporate architect Edward Durell Stone Sr. in the late '60s, pushes its parking lots far away from its offices, forming them into an oval ring of blacktop hidden from onlookers behind thick groves of trees.[13] This interest in hiding parked cars coincides with an increased interest in making the approach to the building dramatic: a visitor drives on a long curving double-road toward the ostentatious front of the building, and can use the ring-road that provides parking lot access to view the building and its landscaped surroundings from all angles.[14]
The Texaco Headquarters, designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merill and built just across the interchange from the Pepsico building, progresses even further in its quest to hide the car while showing off to the driver.[15] Texaco buries its parking lot underneath the grassy expanse in front of the building.[16] The Texaco building uses the same kind of carefully curved approach road as Pepsico does, but it adds to its ability to advertise its brand by locating on top of a hill overlooking the nearby Cross-Westchester Expressway, showing off its imposing form not just to those who drive to the building but to any who drive by it.[17] In the 60s and 70s, corporations responded to the automobile's deadening ubiquity by hiding the evidence of its existence while using their automotive experience to show off their structures more effectively to drivers.
Car as Foundation
By the 1980s, Americans had become seasoned car veterans, collectively driving more than one trillion miles per year.[18] Corporate suburban architecture in the 1980s integrated vehicles into the essential structure of their buildings, embracing the car with the enthusiasm that only thorough knowledge and abiding love can produce. The architecture firm Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates led the charge with its Union Carbide building, completed in 1982 in Danbury, Connecticut.[19] Here the car finally takes its place at the core of the building: a four-level parking lot comprises the whole spine of the long, curving structure, pushing the office spaces out into a coral-like structure facing the surrounding forest.[20] The winding approach road goes directly into one end of the building and departs out the other side, making the building seem almost an organic outgrowth of the road itself, as if the offices flowered naturally, an offshoot of the road's mechanical vitality.[21] A conscious flair for the dramatic informs the approach road, a curving trail through dense forest that opens out suddenly to reveal Union Carbide building at the end of an upward-sloping ramp, poised to swallow car and driver whole.[22]
Roche and Dinkeloo continued their embrace of the car with their General Foods Corporation Headquarters in Rye Brook, New York, finished in 1983.[23] The General Foods building rests squarely atop a two-level parking lot which serves as a height-boosting base to enhance the building's imposing size and whose car circulation merges seamlessly with the circulation of humans in its upper stories.[24] The approach road for visitors is a masterpiece of surprise: a visiting driver emerges from the dense grove of trees that screen the front of the building out onto a narrow bridge over a lake, and proceeds to drive right into the front of the bright white mansion-like structure.[25] To underscore the primacy of the motor vehicle, the building faces the adjacent interstate highway, toward which its axis is aligned, just as an ancient temple aligns to the sacred path of the sun.[26] The car was so ingrained into the American experience and so essential for the suburban office that it seemed only sensible for corporate architects to use the car as the core and foundation of their buildings and to form every aspect of their design for the view from the car.
By the 1980s, Americans had become seasoned car veterans, collectively driving more than one trillion miles per year.[18] Corporate suburban architecture in the 1980s integrated vehicles into the essential structure of their buildings, embracing the car with the enthusiasm that only thorough knowledge and abiding love can produce. The architecture firm Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates led the charge with its Union Carbide building, completed in 1982 in Danbury, Connecticut.[19] Here the car finally takes its place at the core of the building: a four-level parking lot comprises the whole spine of the long, curving structure, pushing the office spaces out into a coral-like structure facing the surrounding forest.[20] The winding approach road goes directly into one end of the building and departs out the other side, making the building seem almost an organic outgrowth of the road itself, as if the offices flowered naturally, an offshoot of the road's mechanical vitality.[21] A conscious flair for the dramatic informs the approach road, a curving trail through dense forest that opens out suddenly to reveal Union Carbide building at the end of an upward-sloping ramp, poised to swallow car and driver whole.[22]
Roche and Dinkeloo continued their embrace of the car with their General Foods Corporation Headquarters in Rye Brook, New York, finished in 1983.[23] The General Foods building rests squarely atop a two-level parking lot which serves as a height-boosting base to enhance the building's imposing size and whose car circulation merges seamlessly with the circulation of humans in its upper stories.[24] The approach road for visitors is a masterpiece of surprise: a visiting driver emerges from the dense grove of trees that screen the front of the building out onto a narrow bridge over a lake, and proceeds to drive right into the front of the bright white mansion-like structure.[25] To underscore the primacy of the motor vehicle, the building faces the adjacent interstate highway, toward which its axis is aligned, just as an ancient temple aligns to the sacred path of the sun.[26] The car was so ingrained into the American experience and so essential for the suburban office that it seemed only sensible for corporate architects to use the car as the core and foundation of their buildings and to form every aspect of their design for the view from the car.
Love On Wheels
After World War Two, America rebuilt itself thoroughly in the auto's image. But car culture was not born fully formed. Through the 1950s, corporate executives did not fully understand the car's potential for aesthetic pain and pleasure, and their big, open parking lots and perfunctory approach roads attest to this ignorance. By the 1970s, corporations understood better both the ugliness of the parked car and the joy of sight-seeing from a moving car, and expressed their experience by hiding their parking lots and building long, winding approach roads. But in the 1980s, with three decades of car-dominance behind them, corporations and their designers began making buildings that celebrated the motor vehicle with a new intensity, turning the parking lot into the spine and the foundation of their buildings, integrating car circulation into the fundamental structure of their creations, and using the speed of car travel to create cinematic surprises for visitors on their perfectly orchestrated approach roads. Corporate architecture in the suburbs is one of the ultimate expressions of America's abiding love for the car.
Notes:
[1] Dolores Hayden, Field Guide to Sprawl (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004) 8.; James Howard Kunstler, The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993) 90, 91, 102, 106-8.
[2] Peter G. Rowe, Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge, Mass, London: The MIT Press, 1991) 166.
[3] Rowe 166.
[4] Kunstler 90; Hayden 8.
[5] Louise A. Mozingo, Pastoral Capitalism: A History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes (Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2011) 55, 57, 59.
[6] "New Providence Daily Photo. “Aerial View of AT&T Bell Labs in 1942.” New Providence Daily Photo Web Site. JPEG image file. January 6, 2011. http://www.kenknowlton.com/ graphics/yungBTL.jpg (accessed October 22, 2012).
[7] "Aerial View of AT&T Bell Labs in 1942.”
[8] Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, "Connecticut General Life Insurance Headquarters," SOM.com, http://www.som.com/content.cfm/connecticut_general_insurance, 22 Oct. 2012.
[9] Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. “Aerial View of Connecticut General Life Insurance Company Headquarters” Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Web site. JPEG image file. 2012. http://www.som.com/local/common/modules/
gallery (accessed October 22, 2012).
[10] Mozingo 117; and compare "Aerial View of AT&T Bell Labs in 1942” with New Providence Daily Photo. “Aerial View of AT&T Bell Labs in 1959.” New Providence Daily Photo Web Site. JPEG image file. January 6, 2011. http://www.nd.edu/~atrozzol/BellLabs1959.jpg (accessed October 22, 2012).
[11] Kunstler 106, 108; John A. Jakle and Keith A. Sculle, Lots of Parking: Land Use in a Car Culture (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004) 10.
[12] Mozingo 137; The Michael A. McCarthy and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill Collection at Cornell University Library, "Series VII. Architectural Projects, Commissions, and Built Works 1964-1998 (SOM Years)," Cornell University Library, http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/ 6306McCarthySOM/series7h_em.htm, 22 Oct 2012.
[13] Mozingo 137; American Society of Landscape Architects. “Aerial View of Pepsico World Headquarters.” American Society of Landscape Architects Web site. JPEG image file. 2009. http://www.asla.org/2009awards/
images/largescale/489_03.jpg (accessed October 22, 2012).
[14] “Aerial View of Pepsico World Headquarters.”
[15] The Michael A. McCarthy and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill Collection at Cornell University Library.
[16] “SOM Guide. Aerial View of Texaco Headquarters.” SOM Guide Web Site. JPEG image file. 1998. http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/6306McCarthySOM/series7h_em.html (accessed October 22, 2012).
[17] “Aerial View of Texaco Headquarters.”
[18] Jakle and Sculle 2.
[19] Kevin Roche Dinkeloo & Associates. "Union Carbide Corporation World Headquarters." Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates Web site. http://www.krjda.com/UnionInfo1.html (accessed October 22, 2012).
[20] Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates. “Aerial View of Union Carbide Corporation World Headquarters.” Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates Web site. JPEG image file. http://www.krjda.com/UnionPhotos1.html (accessed October 22, 2012).
[21] Rowe 168.
[22] Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates. “Layer View of Union Carbide Corporation World Headquarters." Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates Web site. JPEG image file. http://www.krjda.com/Images/Union%20Graphics/ UCC_75.jpg (accessed October 22,
[23] Kevin Roche Dinkeloo & Associates. "General Foods Corporation Headquarters." Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates Web site. http://www.krjda.com/GenFoodsInfo1.html (accessed October 22, 2012).
[24] Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates. “Layer View of General Foods Corporation Headquarters.” Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates Web site. JPEG image file. http://www.krjda.com/Images/General%20Foods%20Graphics/GF_53.jpg (accessed October 22, 2012).
[25] “Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates. “Front View of General Foods Corporation Headquarters.” Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates Web site. JPEG image file. http://www.krjda.com/GenFoodsPhotos1.html (accessed October 22, 2012).
[26] "General Foods Corporation Headquarters."
After World War Two, America rebuilt itself thoroughly in the auto's image. But car culture was not born fully formed. Through the 1950s, corporate executives did not fully understand the car's potential for aesthetic pain and pleasure, and their big, open parking lots and perfunctory approach roads attest to this ignorance. By the 1970s, corporations understood better both the ugliness of the parked car and the joy of sight-seeing from a moving car, and expressed their experience by hiding their parking lots and building long, winding approach roads. But in the 1980s, with three decades of car-dominance behind them, corporations and their designers began making buildings that celebrated the motor vehicle with a new intensity, turning the parking lot into the spine and the foundation of their buildings, integrating car circulation into the fundamental structure of their creations, and using the speed of car travel to create cinematic surprises for visitors on their perfectly orchestrated approach roads. Corporate architecture in the suburbs is one of the ultimate expressions of America's abiding love for the car.
Notes:
[1] Dolores Hayden, Field Guide to Sprawl (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004) 8.; James Howard Kunstler, The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993) 90, 91, 102, 106-8.
[2] Peter G. Rowe, Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge, Mass, London: The MIT Press, 1991) 166.
[3] Rowe 166.
[4] Kunstler 90; Hayden 8.
[5] Louise A. Mozingo, Pastoral Capitalism: A History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes (Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2011) 55, 57, 59.
[6] "New Providence Daily Photo. “Aerial View of AT&T Bell Labs in 1942.” New Providence Daily Photo Web Site. JPEG image file. January 6, 2011. http://www.kenknowlton.com/ graphics/yungBTL.jpg (accessed October 22, 2012).
[7] "Aerial View of AT&T Bell Labs in 1942.”
[8] Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, "Connecticut General Life Insurance Headquarters," SOM.com, http://www.som.com/content.cfm/connecticut_general_insurance, 22 Oct. 2012.
[9] Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. “Aerial View of Connecticut General Life Insurance Company Headquarters” Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Web site. JPEG image file. 2012. http://www.som.com/local/common/modules/
gallery (accessed October 22, 2012).
[10] Mozingo 117; and compare "Aerial View of AT&T Bell Labs in 1942” with New Providence Daily Photo. “Aerial View of AT&T Bell Labs in 1959.” New Providence Daily Photo Web Site. JPEG image file. January 6, 2011. http://www.nd.edu/~atrozzol/BellLabs1959.jpg (accessed October 22, 2012).
[11] Kunstler 106, 108; John A. Jakle and Keith A. Sculle, Lots of Parking: Land Use in a Car Culture (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004) 10.
[12] Mozingo 137; The Michael A. McCarthy and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill Collection at Cornell University Library, "Series VII. Architectural Projects, Commissions, and Built Works 1964-1998 (SOM Years)," Cornell University Library, http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/ 6306McCarthySOM/series7h_em.htm, 22 Oct 2012.
[13] Mozingo 137; American Society of Landscape Architects. “Aerial View of Pepsico World Headquarters.” American Society of Landscape Architects Web site. JPEG image file. 2009. http://www.asla.org/2009awards/
images/largescale/489_03.jpg (accessed October 22, 2012).
[14] “Aerial View of Pepsico World Headquarters.”
[15] The Michael A. McCarthy and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill Collection at Cornell University Library.
[16] “SOM Guide. Aerial View of Texaco Headquarters.” SOM Guide Web Site. JPEG image file. 1998. http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/6306McCarthySOM/series7h_em.html (accessed October 22, 2012).
[17] “Aerial View of Texaco Headquarters.”
[18] Jakle and Sculle 2.
[19] Kevin Roche Dinkeloo & Associates. "Union Carbide Corporation World Headquarters." Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates Web site. http://www.krjda.com/UnionInfo1.html (accessed October 22, 2012).
[20] Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates. “Aerial View of Union Carbide Corporation World Headquarters.” Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates Web site. JPEG image file. http://www.krjda.com/UnionPhotos1.html (accessed October 22, 2012).
[21] Rowe 168.
[22] Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates. “Layer View of Union Carbide Corporation World Headquarters." Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates Web site. JPEG image file. http://www.krjda.com/Images/Union%20Graphics/ UCC_75.jpg (accessed October 22,
[23] Kevin Roche Dinkeloo & Associates. "General Foods Corporation Headquarters." Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates Web site. http://www.krjda.com/GenFoodsInfo1.html (accessed October 22, 2012).
[24] Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates. “Layer View of General Foods Corporation Headquarters.” Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates Web site. JPEG image file. http://www.krjda.com/Images/General%20Foods%20Graphics/GF_53.jpg (accessed October 22, 2012).
[25] “Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates. “Front View of General Foods Corporation Headquarters.” Kevin Roche Dinkeloo and Associates Web site. JPEG image file. http://www.krjda.com/GenFoodsPhotos1.html (accessed October 22, 2012).
[26] "General Foods Corporation Headquarters."