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A Brief
History
After the initial postwar surge of residential development in the United States,
the corporate headquarters followed suit into the rapidly expanding
suburbs. Influential corporations such as General Foods, IBM, and
others redefined the office environment through new suburban models.
The transition from the typology of the urban office tower to a pastoral
imagination of the workplace was simultaneously responsive to changing
external circumstances and a deliberate quest to reinvent corporate
identity.
Some of
the factors contributing to the suburbanization of corporations are similar
to those that instigated the flood of residential development. While
the expanding middle class bought new homes through favorable mortgage
rates and affordable prices, the years following World War II also marked a
period of profitability for many large companies, who began to require more
room for expansion. Office space was becoming more difficult to find
and more expensive in urban areas, so companies such as General Foods(ref)
began to scout peripheral areas to expand their working environments, where
more land was available at a lesser cost. Increasing criticism of the
grittiness and danger of the city and fear of nuclear attack are also cited
as an instigator of suburban flight, affecting both the movement of people
and companies into the suburbs. Louise Mozingo, associate professor
of landscape architecture and environmental planning at UC Berkeley has
done significant research on America’s corporate landscapes, a topic
that has not yet been widely researched. Please see her article
“The Corporate Estate in the USA” cited in the Sources for a
detailed tracing of the corporate office from the urban to a suburban
model.
The
corporate move to the suburbs was also a necessary response to the
residential movement, following the workforce into the suburbs and
decreasing the commute between the white-collar worker and the
office. The movement of the masses signified a shared value system
among many middle class Americans that became a new opportunity for the
corporate sector to engage. The pastoral suburban setting became a common
image of the American Dream, popularized in magazines such as House
Beautiful and through numerous sit-coms depicting idealized suburban
life. Meanwhile, the physical aspect of the corporate image in the
urban skyscraper was comparatively immense and hard-edged. The office
park embraced the landscaping language of the suburban neighborhood with
grass lawns and planted trees to soften and re-familiarize the corporate
image.
3 Typologies
Current Trends
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Regent Court
Parklane Towers
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