Apple Inc. Technology and Architectural Design in the Digital Age

This paper explores the relationship between global markets, digital technologies, and architectural design. In particular, it investigates the controversial nature of the corporation, in fact if “the corporation is a spirit, a gas”, as Deleuze wrote, why do the biggest IT companies still need to build their “supertechnological monuments”? What happens to architecture when it no longer represents an institution, as it did in the past, but rather a company’s philosophy, focusing solely on functional, technological, and media issues? Does architecture matter only in as much as it is able to contribute to the success of the company that it represents, like one of its products? This paper focuses on the strategies used by Apple Computers in the construction of its competitive image, and analyzes the proper company’s style, which we can define as “Apple Architecture”. In particular, this paper examines the Apple campus in Cupertino, suspended between the image of a power station from which free and democratic thought could arise, and the dystopia of control centers where a new type of surveillance is developing.