ul4ew pjoyuley 220d a1D10d 10 pun ‘bipayy ‘ain2ay1Yyosy The Organizational Complex(© 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Allrights reserved. No part ofthis book may be repro- ‘duced in any form by any electronic or mechanical _means {including photocopying, recording, or infor- mation storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. ‘Thisbook was set in Myriad by Graphic Composition, Inc,and was printed and boundiin the United States of America LUbraty of Congress Cataloging in-Publiation Data Martin, Reinhold, 1964~ The organizational complex : architecture, media, and corporate space / Reinhold Martin. pcm. Includes index. ISBN 0-262-1342608 (atk paper) ture and society —United States — History—20th century. 2. Commercial buildings — United States. 3. Commercial buildings — ‘Communication systems. 4. Corporate image— United States. | Title. 1. Ate NA2543:56M362003, 7282097309045 —de21 2002035585:The long, low forms of Eero Saarinen’s General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, appear an the screen of an automobile windshield. The photograph, pub- lished in Great Britain in 1959, says it all.’ By 1945, when the Saarinen office began work on the project, architects had already positioned themselves as custodians of a dynamically organized social unity carried, in principle, by prefabricated modularity. But standardization also suggested homogeneity. And so modern architecture once: again appealed to the machine: “We choose our automobiles within the limitations of the makes and models for the best kind of transportation adapted to our needs, but in order to put that stamp of individuality upon our automobile we do not demand that ithave six wheels and two motors’? This particular appeal was made in 1944 by Saarinen's friend Charles Eames, in “What is a House?,” a text we have already encountered in the previous chapter. One 1 Organic Sy