They may not have windows, workers or office space yet telecom infrastructure buildings are an essential part of the urban megalopolis. Their lack of an obvious human presence, though, has made these towering, nondescript boxes of wire and machinery the subjects of mystery, wonderment and conspiracy theories.
1. AT&T Long Lines Building (33 Thomas Street), Manhattan, New York, USA
Images via Hypergraphic Euphues
The AT&T Long Lines Building, or as it’s known now by its street address: 33 Thomas Street was designed by architect John Carl Warnecke and opened in 1974. The building was built to last with the expectation that its granite-over-concrete exterior and integral power generators would protect the machinery inside from a nuclear explosion.
Image via: Michaeln3
The 550 ft (167.5 m) tall building has only 29 floors because each story has ceilings 18 ft (5.5 meters) high. Odd tubular protrusions on the 10th and 29th floors are for the purpose of ventilating the considerable heat that can build up inside. While often praised for its no-nonsense style that complements other buildings in the area, the stark Brutalist design is a favourite of photographers who wait for lighting conditions that accentuate its “inhuman” aspects.
2. AT&T Long Lines Building, Kansas City, USA
Images via: Eric Bowers, Wikipedia and KCMeesha
Another AT&T Long Lines Building, another city, a different design philosophy. Opened in 1976, AT&T’s Kansas City, Missouri telecom building once housed 1,700 workers who manned call centres and helped route the bulk of the region’s long distance phone calls. These days a mere handful of employees rub shoulders with AT&T’s switching equipment in the underutilized yellow brick fortress.
Image via: KCLUVSKC
At 298 ft (91 meters) and rising 26 stories, the AT&T Long Lines Building at 1425 Oak St. is the 16th-tallest building in Kansas City, so it’s got that going for it, which is nice.
3. Digital Beijing Building, China
Images via: Galinsky and Coolest Gadgets
While the USA is still the champ when it comes to wired and wireless telecommunications, the new century has brought new challengers such as China where the Digital Beijing Building offers a new perspective on buildings for non-humans. Designed by Chinese architect Pei Zhu of Studio Pei Zhu/Urbanus, the building opened in 2007 only to be immediately overshadowed by the spectacular neighbouring structures built for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games.
Images via: Oobject and We Make Money Not Art
The 187 ft (57 meter) tall building wasn’t built for show and compared to its neighbours not everyone is a fan of the structure, either. “It is shaped, cheesily, like a mainframe computer from the 1960s, cut with linear glass strips evoking a circuit board,” sneers Tom Dyckhoff of Times Online. “Four gloomy stone slabs, divided by glass atria, do an excellent Orwellian Ministry of Truth impression. It’s slightly less spirit-crushing inside.” Harsh.
4. PG&E Embarcadero Substation, San Francisco, USA
Images via: Scloopy, Jon|k and Anomalous_A
As Pacific Gas & Electric expanded its capacity to supply power to California’s post-war population and industry boom, a number of electrical substations were constructed in and around the state’s major cities. The Embarcadero Substation was built in 1973 from cast concrete - it’s a massive structure that makes no apologies to those of more refined artistic sensibilities. Kudos to photographer Ryan Alexander (“scloopy”) whose camerawork helped make a brutally Brutalist building even more imposing.
Image via: Refracted Moments
Looming over Folsom Street like some timeless relic of some prehistoric lost civilization, the building’s walls are rough with exposed aggregate that unfortunately traps soot within its confines. It’s almost impossible to find someone who likes the building but SPUR San Jose gave it a shot, stating “Discoloration from smog helps accentuate its subtle curves and makes the building read as even more massive and brawny.” Hooray for smog!
5. 60 Hudson Street (Western Union Building), Manhattan, New York, USA
Images via: Data Center Knowledge, Psolka Photography and Robbie Tilton
In its nearly 50 year long heyday as the world headquarters of Western Union, the full-block telecommunications building at 60 Hudson Street in Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighbourhood housed offices, an auditorium, a cafeteria, a gymnasium, and classrooms for the company’s messengers along with 70 million feet of coiled communications cable.
Image via: New York Architecture
Since 1973, however, the cables (and other associated machinery) have taken over and the beautiful building built in 1928-30 is now “known as the premier carrier hotel in the world…(and) houses over 300 different domestic and international networks.” Designated a New York City landmark in 1991, 60 Hudson Street is a forerunner of the modern telecom infrastructure building and a majority of its many windows look in on “private cages”, cabinets and banks of switching relays.
6. Bell Canada Utility Building, Toronto, Canada
Images via: The Toronto Blog.com
Unlike the exquisite former Western Union HQ, more modern telecom infrastructure buildings are built to satisfy function rather than form. Even so, the Bell Canada building on Simcoe St. in downtown Toronto manages to exude a little warmth thanks to its textured yellow masonry walls and a trio of decorative reflective glass panels along the front. On the other hand, having an ugly parking garage slated for demolition just next door can make most any building look good by comparison.
7. SingTel Building, Singapore
Images via: Wonderkleng and Sheounz
Nothing makes a faceless telecom building look even more anonymous than having a Venetian Renaissance building right in front of it - as is the case with the SingTel Building located directly behind the restored 1904 Stamford House in Singapore.
Image via: Thwapp
Photographer Eric Johnson captured the odd visual conjunction of the two buildings in his photo above, while crystallizing the thoughts of most onlookers thusly: “The black building in the back has almost no windows and is surrounded by a barb wire fence with armed guards. It must be either for prisoners or spies. The sign in front of it says it’s the telephone company.” Nothing to see here citizen, move along.
8. AT&T Building, Stockton, California, USA
Images via: Stockton City Limits and Central Office Buildings
Owned and operated at one time or another by AT&T, SBC, Pacific Telesis and Pacific Bell, this oppressing and overpowering building has all the personality of a Borg cube… and resistance is futile. Stockton isn’t exactly stocked with an overabundance of interesting or at least noticeable buildings but this one managed to make a listing of the top 5 buildings in Stockton that deserve to be demolished. Should that happen, however, the question won’t be “who ya gonna call?” but “how ya gonna call?”
9. The Verizon Building, Manhattan, New York, USA
Image via: Wallyg
The much-maligned Verizon Building at 375 Pearl Street in New York City is getting a makeover, though unfortunately not a cosmetic one. Built in 1975 within view and viewfinder of the beautiful Brooklyn Bridge, the stark yet bland tower was sold to Seattle’s Sabey Corporation in 2012 and is set to reopen as Intergate.Manhattan on March 15th, 2013. Sabey plans no major changes to the building’s exterior, the design of which prompted New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger to complain that it “overwhelms the Brooklyn Bridge towers, thrusts a residential neighbourhood into shadow and sets a tone of utter banality.”
Images via: Bill Binns and FramePhoto
Verizon still occupies three of the 540 ft (160 meter) tall building’s 32 floors and Sabey Corporation is confident they can fill the rest with other clients eager to take advantage of the building’s security, 40mw power supply, 16- to 17-foot (5.2 m) ceilings, and floors built to support 200 to 400 pounds per square foot - up to four times the average for commercial towers. Why are there so many of these data centres in New York City, especially Manhattan? The simple answer is Wall Street - today’s nano-speed equity trading demands that telecommunications processing centres be as close as possible to the actual trading, lest valuable milliseconds be lost as data travels through long distance wiring and cables.
Image via: The Onion
Contrary to an otherwise quite believable article in The Onion, “more than 450,000 desperately sad and lonely people” are NOT “standing by at this time, eagerly awaiting your call” inside the world’s many windowless telecom towers. Then again, since they can’t see out, we can’t see in and therefore just about anything could be going on inside. Things even worse, perhaps, than telemarketers (shudder).
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