Corporate Villas
by Ike Edgerton
Building a Distinguished History
Corporations build structures in the suburbs that echo the form of the villa to connect themselves to its long and distinguished history, positioning the corporation as the successor to two millennia of high-class refinement. The villa is a large detached house that converses with nature, asserts its history and permanence, expresses its owner’s refinement and power, and provides carefully cultivated vistas. The prestige of the villa form is so embedded in Western culture from its continuous association with aristocratic refinement, leisure, power, and wealth that corporations seeking glory channel the villa in their suburban construction almost as a cultural reflex.
Building a Distinguished History
Corporations build structures in the suburbs that echo the form of the villa to connect themselves to its long and distinguished history, positioning the corporation as the successor to two millennia of high-class refinement. The villa is a large detached house that converses with nature, asserts its history and permanence, expresses its owner’s refinement and power, and provides carefully cultivated vistas. The prestige of the villa form is so embedded in Western culture from its continuous association with aristocratic refinement, leisure, power, and wealth that corporations seeking glory channel the villa in their suburban construction almost as a cultural reflex.
The Villa's Ancient Foundations
Roman patricians first established the villa, a large house in the country built for its owner's improvement, entertainment and relaxation, and its basic form has remained unchanged since its invention around the 2nd century BC.[1] The villa expresses the desire of the rich to attain the mythical easy country life, with its virtues and delights untainted by urban corruption and filth.[2] The roman elite built their villas outside their cities the better to escape the toil of "negotium," work and business, and focus their efforts on "otium,” intellectual and physical self-improvement.[3] Life in a villa provided fresh air, exercise, and time for quiet contemplation that they considered essential for achieving the cultural refinement and physical health they desired.[4] Ever since, elites in the West have dreamed of the same pure country life.[5] As soon as conditions permitted after the fall of Rome, villa-builders, especially in Renaissance Italy and Georgian England, strove to replicate the patricians’ houses, appropriating classical architectural forms to connect themselves to their illustrious predecessors.
Roman patricians first established the villa, a large house in the country built for its owner's improvement, entertainment and relaxation, and its basic form has remained unchanged since its invention around the 2nd century BC.[1] The villa expresses the desire of the rich to attain the mythical easy country life, with its virtues and delights untainted by urban corruption and filth.[2] The roman elite built their villas outside their cities the better to escape the toil of "negotium," work and business, and focus their efforts on "otium,” intellectual and physical self-improvement.[3] Life in a villa provided fresh air, exercise, and time for quiet contemplation that they considered essential for achieving the cultural refinement and physical health they desired.[4] Ever since, elites in the West have dreamed of the same pure country life.[5] As soon as conditions permitted after the fall of Rome, villa-builders, especially in Renaissance Italy and Georgian England, strove to replicate the patricians’ houses, appropriating classical architectural forms to connect themselves to their illustrious predecessors.
The Great Copycat: Eero Saarinen's John Deere & Company Administrative Center
Analyzing the design of one of the most influential corporate estates and comparing it to famous villas makes clear the corporation's extensive use of the villa form for its own ends. Perhaps the best example of this conscious appropriation is the seminal John Deere & Company Administrative Center designed in 1958 by Eero Saarinen, a Finnish architect whose genius for integrating building and nature in the villa tradition made him a favorite among corporations.[6] The Center, built on a 720-acre plot of rolling prairie outside of Moline, Illinois, and surrounded by trees, consisted of two large rectangular steel-frame buildings connected by a raised walkway and arranged asymmetrically over a ravine and facing a long man-made pond.[7] Though the Deere executives made no mention of villas in their design brief, their intense interest in making a "beautiful" complex that communes with nature and builds the company's prestige by being both "modern" and "down to earth" aligns exactly with the villa ideal.[8] Even the choice of a small valley for the building site references to the villa tradition; it is Saarinen's sly counter-argument to Palladio, the famous sixteenth-century Italian villa designer, who advised against building in "valleys enclosed between hills" because they "lack dignity and majesty," a claim that Saarinen soundly disproves.[9]
Analyzing the design of one of the most influential corporate estates and comparing it to famous villas makes clear the corporation's extensive use of the villa form for its own ends. Perhaps the best example of this conscious appropriation is the seminal John Deere & Company Administrative Center designed in 1958 by Eero Saarinen, a Finnish architect whose genius for integrating building and nature in the villa tradition made him a favorite among corporations.[6] The Center, built on a 720-acre plot of rolling prairie outside of Moline, Illinois, and surrounded by trees, consisted of two large rectangular steel-frame buildings connected by a raised walkway and arranged asymmetrically over a ravine and facing a long man-made pond.[7] Though the Deere executives made no mention of villas in their design brief, their intense interest in making a "beautiful" complex that communes with nature and builds the company's prestige by being both "modern" and "down to earth" aligns exactly with the villa ideal.[8] Even the choice of a small valley for the building site references to the villa tradition; it is Saarinen's sly counter-argument to Palladio, the famous sixteenth-century Italian villa designer, who advised against building in "valleys enclosed between hills" because they "lack dignity and majesty," a claim that Saarinen soundly disproves.[9]
Nature and Order
In seeking to fulfill desires that are essentially the same as those of the aristocratic villa-builders, Saarinen uses the same forms and strategies. The Deere Center buildings' strict, clean rectangles and gridded, orderly columns contrast with their rolling, leafy setting, an architectural expression of the way the occupants of the building will rationally order their minds and their days with the assistance of their vital, invigorating surroundings. This counterpoint between formal, rectilinear buildings and the organic informality of the trees that surround them is a long-established strategy in villa building.[10] Palladio's Villa Rotonda, built in Vicenza, Italy, in 1566, forms a compelling precedent for the Deere Center, presenting its classical columns and rectangular facade from between the trees in a monumental expression of nature nourishing intellect. The stately rhythm of regularly spaced columns on both the Deere Center and the Villa Rotonda draw upon the classical past to enhance the monumental effect of the buildings' bulk among the trees, associating their builders with Roman imperial power and Greek artistry to emphasize their own permanence and cultural refinement.
In seeking to fulfill desires that are essentially the same as those of the aristocratic villa-builders, Saarinen uses the same forms and strategies. The Deere Center buildings' strict, clean rectangles and gridded, orderly columns contrast with their rolling, leafy setting, an architectural expression of the way the occupants of the building will rationally order their minds and their days with the assistance of their vital, invigorating surroundings. This counterpoint between formal, rectilinear buildings and the organic informality of the trees that surround them is a long-established strategy in villa building.[10] Palladio's Villa Rotonda, built in Vicenza, Italy, in 1566, forms a compelling precedent for the Deere Center, presenting its classical columns and rectangular facade from between the trees in a monumental expression of nature nourishing intellect. The stately rhythm of regularly spaced columns on both the Deere Center and the Villa Rotonda draw upon the classical past to enhance the monumental effect of the buildings' bulk among the trees, associating their builders with Roman imperial power and Greek artistry to emphasize their own permanence and cultural refinement.
Classical Composition
Classical antiquity also makes itself felt in the layout of the Deere Center's buildings: the low-lying, asymmetrically composed structures create the feeling that the Center is entwined with and connected to its natural surroundings, a strategy that shares a striking similarity with the Roman emperor Hadrian's villa outside of Trivoli, whose informal, organic grouping of structures creates a conversation with the rolling countryside and the wild-growing trees.[11] Hadrian's villa also anticipates Saarinen's decision to leave spaces between buildings for vegetation to creep into and his choice to use narrow walkways to bridge that gap, surrounding the viewer with nature while still sheltering him in the comforting embrace of artifice. The Deere Center’s naturalistic, tree-flanked pond with its grid of fountains, also appears quite similar to the pools of from Hadrian's villa, whose union of organic and man-made is also clear in its straight edges and the columns at its terminus. The Center's iconic image of vertical columns flanked by trees and reflected in a pond that was built with rectilinear elements cannot be linked definitely to the emperor's villa, but the circumstantial coincidence is substantial: Saarinen studied classical architecture, visited Rome multiple times, filling sketchbooks with drawings of Roman ruins, and displayed a thorough knowledge of classical architecture.[12]
Raw Steel, Raw Power
Saarinen composed his buildings to create a dynamic interaction with nature, and increases the intimacy of this interaction by using Cor-Ten steel for their external frames.[13] Cor-Ten rusts to a brown protective finish, drawing in the raw, earthy power of the landscape and channeling it into formal grids to enhance the big rectangle's muscularity and to emphasize its connection to its surroundings. Saarinen chose Cor-Ten because it had a "character that only nature can give."[14] This strategy also has a long tradition in villa-building.[15] The Villa de' Vescovi, built in 1529 in Luvigliano, Italy, for example, uses rough brick and large unsmoothed stones for its lower floors to project a rugged image.[16] Using materials so obviously wrested from the earth remind the viewer of the owner’s power by the force of their crudeness and by reminding the viewer of castles, the military strongholds of feudal lords.[17] Saarinen's use of rusted steel is similar, because military might in the 20th century depended upon a country's ability to produce steel by the ton. With its military materials and its rough edges, the Deere Center makes clear its owners' power and union with nature, continuing a venerable villa tradition.
Classical antiquity also makes itself felt in the layout of the Deere Center's buildings: the low-lying, asymmetrically composed structures create the feeling that the Center is entwined with and connected to its natural surroundings, a strategy that shares a striking similarity with the Roman emperor Hadrian's villa outside of Trivoli, whose informal, organic grouping of structures creates a conversation with the rolling countryside and the wild-growing trees.[11] Hadrian's villa also anticipates Saarinen's decision to leave spaces between buildings for vegetation to creep into and his choice to use narrow walkways to bridge that gap, surrounding the viewer with nature while still sheltering him in the comforting embrace of artifice. The Deere Center’s naturalistic, tree-flanked pond with its grid of fountains, also appears quite similar to the pools of from Hadrian's villa, whose union of organic and man-made is also clear in its straight edges and the columns at its terminus. The Center's iconic image of vertical columns flanked by trees and reflected in a pond that was built with rectilinear elements cannot be linked definitely to the emperor's villa, but the circumstantial coincidence is substantial: Saarinen studied classical architecture, visited Rome multiple times, filling sketchbooks with drawings of Roman ruins, and displayed a thorough knowledge of classical architecture.[12]
Raw Steel, Raw Power
Saarinen composed his buildings to create a dynamic interaction with nature, and increases the intimacy of this interaction by using Cor-Ten steel for their external frames.[13] Cor-Ten rusts to a brown protective finish, drawing in the raw, earthy power of the landscape and channeling it into formal grids to enhance the big rectangle's muscularity and to emphasize its connection to its surroundings. Saarinen chose Cor-Ten because it had a "character that only nature can give."[14] This strategy also has a long tradition in villa-building.[15] The Villa de' Vescovi, built in 1529 in Luvigliano, Italy, for example, uses rough brick and large unsmoothed stones for its lower floors to project a rugged image.[16] Using materials so obviously wrested from the earth remind the viewer of the owner’s power by the force of their crudeness and by reminding the viewer of castles, the military strongholds of feudal lords.[17] Saarinen's use of rusted steel is similar, because military might in the 20th century depended upon a country's ability to produce steel by the ton. With its military materials and its rough edges, the Deere Center makes clear its owners' power and union with nature, continuing a venerable villa tradition.
Preserving the View
The Deere Center's hulking steel frames do not prevent it from following yet another villa ideal: that of hiding and minimizing the actual ugly work that underpins the building's existence. There is nothing nearby to suggest that the magnificent structure serves as the headquarters for a company that makes heavy-duty farming equipment: no loading-docks, no smokestacks. Saarinen even hides his parking lots behind trees. In this, like so much else, he follows in the footsteps of villa-builders past, who over time eliminated from their land the farm equipment, laborers and tools that accompany agriculture so that their views would be undisturbed, and built hidden staircases so that their servants could work unseen.[18] This focus on the view also informs the roads leading up to Deere Center: Saarinen, again taking his cue from the villa, designed sinuous approach roads to show off his buildings and their surroundings to best effect, an aesthetic consideration visible in the scenic routes built around Hadrian's villa and its followers.[19]
The Deere Center's hulking steel frames do not prevent it from following yet another villa ideal: that of hiding and minimizing the actual ugly work that underpins the building's existence. There is nothing nearby to suggest that the magnificent structure serves as the headquarters for a company that makes heavy-duty farming equipment: no loading-docks, no smokestacks. Saarinen even hides his parking lots behind trees. In this, like so much else, he follows in the footsteps of villa-builders past, who over time eliminated from their land the farm equipment, laborers and tools that accompany agriculture so that their views would be undisturbed, and built hidden staircases so that their servants could work unseen.[18] This focus on the view also informs the roads leading up to Deere Center: Saarinen, again taking his cue from the villa, designed sinuous approach roads to show off his buildings and their surroundings to best effect, an aesthetic consideration visible in the scenic routes built around Hadrian's villa and its followers.[19]
The Nine-to-Five Aristocrats
Saarinen's Deere Center is only one of a host of corporate suburban buildings that use villa forms to appropriate its deeply resonant positive associations in Western culture. The elemental forms are visible in the General Foods World Headquarters, in the Gannet/USA Today building, and in the Pepsico World Headquarters, to name just a few. Like the great villas of the past, the Deere Center converses with life-giving nature by juxtaposing formal rectangles with trees and asymmetry, channels Roman permanence and Greek refinement with its columns and pools, connects to the earth and expresses its might with the selective use of rough materials, and banishes the evidence of production from its vistas. By drawing upon the architectural elements that distinguish the long lineage of the villa, the corporation cloaks itself in the narratives that animated them: in its aristocratic regalia, the corporation looks pleasant, leisurely, cultured, powerful, wealthy, and long-standing; by appropriating the villa form for their own use, America's corporate elite assert their place in the line of refined gentlemen that goes back unbroken to the first Roman to seek otium.
Notes:
[1] James Ackerman, The Villa: Form and Ideology of Country Houses (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990) 9, 43.
[2] Ackerman, 10, 12.
[3] Ackerman, 37.
[4] Ackerman 36.
[5] Ackerman 9.
[6] Pelkonen 277.
[7] "John Deere & Company Administrative Center," In Louise A. Mozingo, Pastoral Capitalism: A History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2011) 124.
[8] Nancy Anne Miller, "Eero Saarinen on the Frontier of the Future: Building Corporate Image in the American Suburban Landscape" (PhD diss., Univesity of Michigan, 1999) 187, 178.
[9] Palladio, quoted in Ackerman, 98; Pelkonen 284.
[10] Pelkonen 284, Ackerman 30.
[11] Chiang, Penley, "Model of Site," The Virtual Lawn Web site, JPEG image file, 30 April 2010, http://www.virginia.edu/president/kenanscholarship/work/archive_files/penley_chiang/ (accessed October 10, 2012).
[12] Pelkonen 326, 338, 340.
[13] Louise A. Mozingo, Pastoral Capitalism: A History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes (Cambridge, Mass; London: The MIT Press, 2011) 123.
[14] Miller 197.
[15] Ackerman 31.
[16] Giovanni Maria Falcone or Alvise Cornaro. Villa de Vescori, 1529, in James Ackerman, The Villa: Form and Ideology of Country Houses (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990) 87.
[17] Ackerman 31, 32, 65.
[18] John Archer, Architecture and Suburbia: From English Villa to American Dream House, 1690-2000 (Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press, 2005) 52, 100.
[19] Mozingo 127; Chiang, "Model of Site."
Saarinen's Deere Center is only one of a host of corporate suburban buildings that use villa forms to appropriate its deeply resonant positive associations in Western culture. The elemental forms are visible in the General Foods World Headquarters, in the Gannet/USA Today building, and in the Pepsico World Headquarters, to name just a few. Like the great villas of the past, the Deere Center converses with life-giving nature by juxtaposing formal rectangles with trees and asymmetry, channels Roman permanence and Greek refinement with its columns and pools, connects to the earth and expresses its might with the selective use of rough materials, and banishes the evidence of production from its vistas. By drawing upon the architectural elements that distinguish the long lineage of the villa, the corporation cloaks itself in the narratives that animated them: in its aristocratic regalia, the corporation looks pleasant, leisurely, cultured, powerful, wealthy, and long-standing; by appropriating the villa form for their own use, America's corporate elite assert their place in the line of refined gentlemen that goes back unbroken to the first Roman to seek otium.
Notes:
[1] James Ackerman, The Villa: Form and Ideology of Country Houses (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990) 9, 43.
[2] Ackerman, 10, 12.
[3] Ackerman, 37.
[4] Ackerman 36.
[5] Ackerman 9.
[6] Pelkonen 277.
[7] "John Deere & Company Administrative Center," In Louise A. Mozingo, Pastoral Capitalism: A History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2011) 124.
[8] Nancy Anne Miller, "Eero Saarinen on the Frontier of the Future: Building Corporate Image in the American Suburban Landscape" (PhD diss., Univesity of Michigan, 1999) 187, 178.
[9] Palladio, quoted in Ackerman, 98; Pelkonen 284.
[10] Pelkonen 284, Ackerman 30.
[11] Chiang, Penley, "Model of Site," The Virtual Lawn Web site, JPEG image file, 30 April 2010, http://www.virginia.edu/president/kenanscholarship/work/archive_files/penley_chiang/ (accessed October 10, 2012).
[12] Pelkonen 326, 338, 340.
[13] Louise A. Mozingo, Pastoral Capitalism: A History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes (Cambridge, Mass; London: The MIT Press, 2011) 123.
[14] Miller 197.
[15] Ackerman 31.
[16] Giovanni Maria Falcone or Alvise Cornaro. Villa de Vescori, 1529, in James Ackerman, The Villa: Form and Ideology of Country Houses (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990) 87.
[17] Ackerman 31, 32, 65.
[18] John Archer, Architecture and Suburbia: From English Villa to American Dream House, 1690-2000 (Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press, 2005) 52, 100.
[19] Mozingo 127; Chiang, "Model of Site."