History
Before the present building, the site was used by Bell Telephone Laboratories for research, most notably Karl Guthe Jansky invented radio astronomy there. A monument was placed at the former location (40°21′54.5″N 74°09′48.9″W / 40.365139°N 74.163583°W / 40.365139; -74.163583) of the antenna almost seventy years later in 1998. The monument is a stylized sculpture of the antenna and is oriented as Jansky's antenna was at 7:10 p.m. on September 16, 1932, at a moment of maximum signal caused by alignment with the center of our galaxy in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.
In 1957 the Bell Telephone Company began to plan a research laboratory in Holmdel Township, New Jersey Constructed between 1959 and 1962, this complex was one of the final projects of Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen before his death in 1961. Used as a research and development complex, it served the needs of the Bell Laboratories division of Bell Telephone, later known as AT&T, Lucent, and Alcatel-Lucent. Basic research, applied hardware development, and software development occurred in the building.
The building's distinctive features, including its mirror-like appearance, led to recognition as the Laboratory of the Year by R&D in 1967.
The building was subsequently expanded in 1966 and 1982 to its final size of two million square feet of office and laboratory space. Despite these expansions, the original curtain wall design remained intact, as did the unique layout of the site, which included a large elliptical master plan and country-road like approach. Over its active life-span, the facility and its layout was studied in universities as a model of modernist architecture. Internally, the building is divided into four pavilions of labs and offices, each around an atrium. The internal pavilions are linked via sky-bridges and perimeter walkway.
Also of note is the water tower on the complex, which was designed to look like the then-new transistor and is still in usable condition more than 40 years after its construction.
Read more about this topic: Bell Labs Holmdel Complex
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