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Eero Saarinen Travel: Taking Care of Business

July 29, 2008 at 11:33 AM | by | Comments (0)

As you can probably tell, we just can't get enough of Eero Saarinen over here. As we continue to lust over the Finnish-American architect, we travel to Rochester, Minnesota to see the facility he created for one of America's most well-known companies. Construction of IBM Rochester began in 1956 and when first completed, it created 576,000 square feet of work space for the company.

The building has grown over the years and now represents the largest IBM facility in the world under one roof. The Rochester staff has received over 2,700 US patents for product innovation over the years.

Saarinen designed the facility to be covered with huge blue panels in varying shades that are said to be representative of the Minnesota sky. ("Big Blue" was probably impressed that their newest home would always match their logo, too.) The building was recognized in 1990 by the National Building Museum as a significant addition to the US business landscape, along with IBM facilities in New York and Atlanta.

Today about 4,400 employees continue to put the building to good use working on eServer business computers.

Related Stories:
· IBM Rochester Profile [Official Site]
· Eero Saarinen Travel Map [Jaunted]
· Architecture Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Wikimedia]

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