Architect got rich from Google campus Eric Schmidt hates
Architect Clive Wilkinson just finished building his own home in southern California. In a profile, the New York Times calls it "the house that Google built." Wilkinson is best known for his $15 million renovation in 2006 of the company's Mountain View headquarters, which a curator Paola Antonelli at the Museum of Modern Art calls "not offices," but "memorable places for people to work in new ways.” If by "new ways" Antonelli means "grumpily," then it seems Googlers would agree.Wilkinson himself only considers the Googleplex redesign “partially successful.” The Times reports:
Many engineers and the company’s chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, were not happy with the shock of change, including orange and green carpets, glass workrooms with yurt-like tented fabric roofs to absorb reverberations and “clubhouses” with beanbag chairs for brainstorming that some employees just avoid. “The acoustics in the yurts made people woozy,” said a Google executive who asked to remain anonymous to protect his job. While neither Google nor Mr. Schmidt would comment, Mr. Schmidt, by many accounts, moved out of the building and his large glass office into a tiny but secluded space. “Tour groups and passersby were always rapping on his glass wall to say hi,” said the Google executive. “Eric felt it was unproductive.”