PHOTO: (click on photo to enlarge) above, original HP Cupertino site before being bulldozed to make space for new Apple headquarters. Below, map of area surrounding the new circular building for Apple Computer in Cupertino, California as shown by Google Maps (accessed Jun. 3, 2017). The Hewlett-Packard Cupertino site was bulldozed to make space for it. This site was the second home of the HP Calculator division before it moved to Corvallis, Oregon in 1975. HP buildings were northwest and Southeast of Pruneridge Ave. and Tantau Ave., which is north of I-280 and south of E. Homestead Rd. as shown on the above map. (See previous post Apple to bulldoze HP site to build circular building for 12,000 employees (6/15/11))
PHOTO: (click on photo to enlarge) visitor's map, circa 1984, to the Hewlett-Packard Company's Cupertino, California Silicon Valley site. This was the home to the new and growing HP computer business in the 1970s, including the HP Calculator division before it moved to Corvallis, Oregon in 1975. Steve Jobs recalls when it was an apricot orchard where as a kid he saw Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard walking the site before buying it. (Note: the above map was rotated so that North is pointing up on this blog page to match the other maps shown. Silicon Valley maps are often rotated to fit better on a page. (See previous post Apple to bulldoze HP site to build circular building for 12,000 employees (6/15/11))
A recent magazine article about the new Apple headquarters said:
According to Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs, there was another factor. When Jobs showed a drawing of the clover leaf to his son, Reed, the teenager commented that from the air, the building would look like male genitalia. The next day Jobs repeated the observation to the architects, warning them that from that point on, "you're never going to be able to erase that vision from your mind." (Foster and Behling say they have no recollection of this.)
By June 2010 it was a circle. No one takes full credit for the shape; all seem to feel it was inevitable all along. "Steve dug it right away," Foster says.
By that fall Whisenhunt had heard that a former HP campus in Cupertino might be available. The 100-acre plot was just north of Apple's planned site. What's more, it had deep meaning for Jobs. As a young teen he had talked his way into a summer job at HP, just at the time when its founders-Jobs' heroes-were walking that site and envisioning an office park cluster for their computer systems division. Now HP was contracting and no longer needed the space. Whisenhunt worked a deal, and Apple's project suddenly grew to 175 acres.
Ironically, if Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard (i.e. Bill and Dave) were still alive today, I am sure they would be happy that Steve Jobs was inspired by them. However, their Depression era frugalness and and engineer's sense of practicality would probably make them uncomfortable with all of the glitz of this new headquarters building. When I was the manager in charge of the HP building where Bill and Dave's offices were located, they wanted to look at my plans to remodel the building to make space for an advanced engineering lab, and they looked carefully at the costs of the Steelcase cubicles I planned to put in to be completive with other companies. Prior to that, HP famously had no walls, not even cubicle walls, but many engineers, especially software engineers felt the need for some sound buffering to help them concentrate. (See previous posts Apple to bulldoze HP site to build circular building for 12,000 employees (6/15/11) and Apple founder Steve Jobs cosmic connection to HP Corvallis (10/12/11))
