IBM 25: Just A Part of History Receding

The indispensable Eddie Izzard does a very funny skit about the difference between European and American version of history ("We restored this Miami hotel to the way it looked over 50 years ago!"). It's a distinctly North American memory issue - we imagine that our abbreviated past extends out with as much breadth and importance as older cultures. England, for example, has real castles. I'm told.

This comes to mind when you read about the plan underway to demolish IBM's Building 25 in Silicon Valley to make way for a big box retailer. According to the Mercury News:

Building 25 is considered historically significant for research conducted on the flying-head disk drive, one of the most important technological inventions in Silicon Valley; for work done there by Reynold Johnson and the IBM Research Team; and for its California mid-century modern design, by renowned architect John Bolles.

Now, certainly the work done in this building had some degree of importance. And I'm in agreement, overall, that my nation does a lousy job in the aggregate of taking care of property. We build cheap structures which linger, vacant, long past their lifetimes because of a financial treatment on the backend - it cost more to tear them down. Other times when they're a greater economic value we rip down the past indiscriminately. (Right now some of the most scenic and history-laden harbors in Maine are being replaced with multi-million dollar condos.)

Nonetheless, let's pause for a few moments to note the irony. The terrific improvements in commercial information technology that were pioneered by a company like IBM (in buildings like this one) have helped give rise to the manufacturing efficiencies, JIT inventory and cost management systems that enabled the rise of companies like WalMart and the other big boxers. Now, in terms of prime California real estate, it's come back around the other way.