The giant technology firms of Silicon Valley bill annual amounts that compare with the GDP of many countries together; so it is that their headquarters, in size and presence, are not just buildings but private cities, with notable impact on their surroundings. The director of the Design Museum in London, Deyan Sudjic, examines the potential and the paradoxes of these huge corporate campuses, and we present them in detail through a selection of two completed works and three projects. The two finished complexes are the exquisite and civic ring Norman Foster built for Apple in Cupertino, and the enormous labyrinthine and ludic space that Frank Gehry designed for Facebook in Menlo Park.

The giant technology firms of Silicon Valley bill annual amounts that compare with the GDP of many countries together; so it is that their headquarters, in size and presence, are not just buildings but private cities, with notable impact on their surroundings. The director of the Design Museum in London, Deyan Sudjic, examines the potential and the paradoxes of these huge corporate campuses, and we present them in detail through a selection of two completed works and three projects. The two finished complexes are the exquisite and civic ring Norman Foster built for Apple in Cupertino, and the enormous labyrinthine and ludic space that Frank Gehry designed for Facebook in Menlo Park.