Saturday, August 18, 2007

End of An Era: Holmdel Bell Labs Site


Bell Labs, now part of Alcatel-Lucent, vacated the main facility at Holmdel, New Jersey at the end of July, 2007. All(?) of us worked there for part of our careers. Towards the end, the building had fewer than 1,000 occupants, with a capacity of about 5,500. The building was designed by Finnish architect Eero Saarinen in the late 1950s, opened in 1962 and then expanded twice. It was architecturally significant and was considered a prototype of modern office facilities. The site is being redeveloped, with most of the main building demolished and several smaller office buildings constructed on the site. There may also be age-restricted housing. See a slide show of 50 site photos here, a trove of Bell Labs history here and a recent article on the site's architecture here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post; enjoyed the slide show. Brought back lots of memories.

Joe Rick said...

On recent drive past location, saw that Lucent-Alcatel signs at entrances are now blank.