Hewlett/Packard

Today I visited a pair of buildings called the William R. Hewlett Teaching Center and the David Packard Electrical Engineering Building.  The two buildings are situated on either side of a red-brick patio, but rather than directly facing each other, they face out (at about 45 degrees) toward an observer approaching the center of the patio, nameplates clearly visible.  The relationship between the two buildings extends beyond their proximity and their shared patio, however: while the Hewlett building protrudes over the patio in a semicircular fashion, the Packard building is recessed, as though a portion similar in size and shape to the protrusion of the Hewlett building (though straight-lined) had been carved out of its interior.  As a result, one can imagine a sort of fit between the buildings (think Pangaea)--and it seems reasonable to assume that this characteristic was implemented intentionally to represent the meshing of the minds of Hewlett and Packard in the realm of their company and technological explorations.  Further emphasis is placed on the recess of the Packard building by the semicircular raising of the patio just in front of it (which corresponds to the Hewlett building), and by the glass that composes the majority of the building’s front wall--as though a close-up observer were already inside the building, as he would be, were the recess not carved out.

Aside from the glass, the exterior of the Packard building, like the exterior of the Hewlett building, is made of a silvery, metallic material reminiscent of computer hardware--which relates obviously to the careers of computer engineers Hewlett and Packard.  While the Hewlett building appears perfectly semicircular from afar, upon closer viewing one discovers that the building’s curve is actually comprised of several flat sections (which are more reminiscent of hardware than curves are).  One could argue that the transition from a close-up flatness to a distant curve corresponds to the transition from the mechanics of engineering to the beauty of what engineering accomplishes--and while this interpretation may seem stretched, the building’s design was certainly deliberate, and at the very least sought an interchangeability between the straight and the curved, the ordered and the elegant.