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Comment by pesenti | Hacker News Reader

Many of these buildings are in truly breathtaking locations... but depressingly isolated. The most beautiful I have visited:

The John Deere HQ (featured in the article) is almost worth the trip to Moline, IL https://www.google.com/search?q=Eero+Saarinen%E2%80%99s+proj...

The IBM research center in Yorktown Heights is a section of a circle https://www.google.com/search?q=yorktown+heights+ibm&espv=2&...

The IBM research center in Almaden is in an amazing CA county park https://www.google.com/search?q=almaden+research+center&espv...

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Don't forget the Andrew Lloyd Wright masterpiece that serves as the SC Johnson HQ in scenic Racine Wisconsin: https://www.google.com/search?q=sc+johnson&client=safari&hl=...

Andrew? I thought it was FLW.

He was the adopted son of Frank Lloyd Wright and Andrew Lloyd Webber -- the building is also a musical masterpiece.

Mr. Muscle Superstar Do you think you're what they say you are?

Yeah, I think he's conflating Frank Lloyd Wright and Andrew Lloyd Weber.

Indeed. A landmark of the Arts & Cats movement.

I think you mean Arts & Crafts but I like your version

He's making an Andrew Lloyd Webber-Frank Lloyd Wright joke.

Let the down votes fall as they may, but that was quite well played.

They give tours, and they are well worth the time. It's a family owned company, so you get a lot of cult-like adoration for their dear leaders, but it does seem like a great place to work.

That being said, Frank Lloyd Wright hated the location because it isn't suburban. The reason none of the buildings have normal windows is because Wright thought the surrounding urban/semi-urban landscape was too ugly to look at.

One of my favorite buildings, the Weyerhaeuser (paper company) HQ in Federal Way, just south of Seattle, sits well and integrates with the terrain around it:

https://www.google.com/search?q=weyerhaeuser+headquarters&so...

They left that building a few months ago and now are based in Pioneer Square, near downtown Seattle.

i really hope someone buys it and uses it, its such a beautiful piece of architecture.

I've always wondered what that building was! Looks really cool from the freeway too.

It used to be one could drive over to it, and on a weekend people (not of the executive class) would be out picnicking or flying kites by the surrounding pools. There was a corporate-sponsored bonsai garden (appropriate for a company in the tree business) which was open to the public. That was in the mid-90s.

the bonsai museum is still there, is one of the best in the US and still worth the visit. http://pacificbonsaimuseum.org/

the gardens are also worth checking out if you are in the area, the entrance is right near the bonsaid museum entrance.

The Almaden research center has a great location, but isn't in a state park. It's near a county park, which might be what you are thinking of.

Oh right, thanks! Corrected.

Beat me to it! There also used to be one on Cottle Road but was closed down.

IIRC correctly (not sure on this one), there also used to be an IBM campus a few miles to the west and there still is another campus on Bailey a few miles east. Pretty incredible that there used to be 4 (maybe 3) large-scale IBM campuses all within a ~10 mile radius.

Should anyone find themselves near Purchase, NY, PepsiCo headquarters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_M._Kendall_Sculpture_Ga...) is worth a stop.

Wow. That John Deere HQ is really beautiful. It reminds me of traditional Japanese architecture.

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