The Bell Labs Holmdel Complex, in Holmdel Township,

Monmouth County Monmouth County () is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is bordered to its west by Mercer and Middlesex Counties, to its south by Ocean County, to its east by the Atlantic Ocean, and to its north by ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

, United States, functioned for 44 years as a

research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in some countries as OKB, experiment and design, is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products. R&D constitutes the first stage ...

facility, initially for the

Bell System The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the AT&T Corporation, American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America fo ...

and later

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...

. The centerpiece of the campus is an

Eero Saarinen Eero Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer who created a wide array of innovative designs for buildings and monuments, including the General Motors Technical Center; the pa ...

–designed structure. This modernist building, dubbed "The Biggest Mirror Ever" by ''

Architectural Forum ''Architectural Forum'' was an American magazine that covered the homebuilding industry and architecture. Started in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1892 as ''The Brickbuilder'', it absorbed the magazine ''Architect's World'' in October 1938. Ownershi ...

'' due to its

mirror A mirror, also known as a looking glass, is an object that Reflection (physics), reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror forms an image of whatever is in front of it, which is then focused through the lens of the eye or a camera ...

box exterior, was the site of a Nobel Prize discovery, the

laser cooling Laser cooling includes several techniques where atoms, molecules, and small mechanical systems are cooled with laser light. The directed energy of lasers is often associated with heating materials, e.g. laser cutting, so it can be counterintuit ...

work of

Steven Chu Steven Chu Restructuring of the company's research efforts reduced the use of the Holmdel Complex, and in 2006 the building was put up for sale. The building has undergone renovations into a multi-purpose living and working space, dubbed Bell Works by its redevelopers. Since 2013 it has been operated by Somerset Development, who redeveloped the building into a mixed-use office for

high-tech High technology (high tech or high-tech), also known as advanced technology (advanced tech) or exotechnology, is technology that is at the cutting edge: the highest form of technology available. It can be defined as either the most complex or ...

startup companies A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses tha ...

. The complex was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 2017. A number of film, television series, and commercials have been filmed in and around Bell Works, including '' Severance'', ''

The Crowded Room ''The Crowded Room'' is an American psychological thriller miniseries created by Akiva Goldsman and inspired by the 1981 non-fiction novel ''The Minds of Billy Milligan'' by Daniel Keyes. Tom Holland, Amanda Seyfried, and Emmy Rossum lead a supp ...

'', and '' Law & Order: Organized Crime''. __TOC__

History

Radio astronomy

Before the complex was constructed, the site was used by Bell Telephone Laboratories for research.

Karl Guthe Jansky Karl Guthe Jansky (October 22, 1905 – February 14, 1950) was an American physicist and radio engineer who in April 1933 first announced his discovery of radio waves emanating from the Milky Way in the constellation Sagittarius. He is consider ...

invented

radio astronomy Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies Astronomical object, celestial objects using radio waves. It started in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation coming from the Milky Way. Subsequent observat ...

there, and a monument was placed at the former location of the antenna almost seventy years later in 1998. The monument is a stylized sculpture of the antenna and is oriented as Jansky's antenna was at 7:10 p.m. on September 16, 1932, at a moment of maximum signal caused by alignment with the center of our galaxy in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. In subsequent years, radio astronomy and similar research was done at the separate Crawford Hill annex facility, some away from the main Holmdel complex.

Construction and early years

In 1957, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) began to plan a research laboratory in Holmdel Township in

Central New Jersey Central Jersey, or Central New Jersey, is the middle region of the U.S. state of New Jersey. The designation Central Jersey is a distinct administrative division, administrative toponymy, toponym. While New Jersey is often divided into North Je ...

. Constructed between 1959 and 1962, the complex design was one of the final projects of

Finnish-American Finnish Americans (, ) comprise Americans with ancestral roots in Finland, or Finnish people who immigrated to and reside in the United States. The Finnish-American population is around 650,000. Many Finnish people historically immigrated to ...

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

before his death in 1961. Used as a research and development complex, it served the needs of the Bell Laboratories division of AT&T. Basic research, applied hardware development, and software development occurred in the building. The building's distinctive features, including its mirror-like appearance, led to recognition as the Laboratory of the Year by R&D in 1967. The building was expanded in 1966 and 1982 to its final size of of office and laboratory space. Despite these expansions, the original curtain wall design remained intact, as did the unique layout of the site, which included a large elliptical master plan and country-road like approach. Over its active life-span, the facility and its layout were studied in universities as models of modernist architecture. Internally, the building was divided into four pavilions of labs and offices, each separated from the others by a cross-shaped atrium. The internal pavilions were linked via sky-bridges and perimeter walkway. The

water tower A water tower is an elevated structure supporting a water tank constructed at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system, distribution system for potable water, and to provide emergency storage for fire protection. Water towe ...

on the complex is a three-legged design that reminded people of a

transistor A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch electrical signals and electric power, power. It is one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. It is composed of semicondu ...

. Despite the lack of any documented historical evidence, an urban legend claims that the designer intentionally modelled the tower on the form of a transistor. Another urban legend – less widely circulated than the transistor story – claims that the concrete floodlight stand at the base of the tower was originally a water fountain.Personal story told by a Bell Works concierge. The tower was still in usable condition more than 40 years after its construction.

Decline and preservation efforts

Bell Labs subsequently became part of

Lucent Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the divestiture of the former AT&T Technologies busines ...

, and then

Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel-Lucent S.A. () was a multinational telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, France. The company focused on Fixed line telephone, fixed, Mobile phone, mobile and telecommunications convergence, ...

. In 2006, Alcatel-Lucent contracted to sell the facility to Preferred Real Estate Investments, during the process of restructuring the company's research efforts. Despite initial plans to maintain the original buildings and keep the six-story complex as a corporate office park, Preferred later sought to rezone it as residential property. As a result, the complex was added to

The Cultural Landscape Foundation The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit founded in 1998 by Charles A. Birnbaum with a mission of “connecting people to places.” Mission TCLF educates and engages the public to study landscapes and better understa ...

's list of 10 Most Endangered Historic Sites in New Jersey in May 2007. Additionally, action led to the creation of a citizen's group, Preserving Holmdel, by former Bell employees, to lobby for keeping the complex as it was when in use as a laboratory. A report by Preservation New Jersey contemplated changes to the property, including ideas such as a university center, recreational complex, and a healthcare facility. The transaction with Preferred Real Estate Investments did not close, and on May 17, 2012, Holmdel Township declared the site as an "Area in Need of Redevelopment" and adopted a redevelopment plan for the property that included various adaptive reuses of the main building, the construction of up to 40 single-family homes, and 185 age-restricted townhomes outside the main ring road surrounding the building. The plan was based on a concept proposed by Inspired by Somerset Development (then Somerset Development). In September 2013, the property was officially purchased by Inspired by Somerset Development – which submitted a concept plan in accordance with Holmdel Township's redevelopment plan for $27 million. Inspired by Somerset Development proposed an adaptive reuse project that included offices, a health and wellness center, restaurants, shopping, a spa, and a 20,000-square-foot public library. Recreational space and luxury homes were planned for the surrounding land; national homebuilder Toll Brothers was slated to be the residential developer of the project. Alexander Gorlin served as the architect for the projects and introduced new designs, which included opening up the laboratory spaces with atrium light by replacing Saarinen's metal panels with glass, redesigning the two atria floors, and replacing skylights with transparent photovoltaic panels. As a result of these design improvements, the building won numerous design and architecture awards, including the Docomomo US Modernism in America Award, Starnet Commercial Flooring Design Award, and the Azure Awards, Architecture Adaptive Re-Use category.

Redevelopment

Transition to mixed-use facility

Bell Labs Holmdel during repurposing to Bell Works

In 2013, Inspired by Somerset Development officially secured ownership of the Bell Labs site and signed a deal with Toll Brothers to sell of land to develop 225 homes on a portion of the property between the main building and Crawfords Corner Road while retaining the entirety of the Eero Saarinen-designed structure (Bacevice et al., 2022). This deal with Toll Brothers helped provide the capital for Inspired by Somerset Development to pursue its

New Urbanism New Urbanism is an urban design movement that promotes environmentally friendly habits by creating Walkability, walkable neighbourhoods containing a wide range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has ...

-inspired redevelopment plan at Bell Labs. The plan aimed to transform the site from office-lab to a space that would provide the Holmdel Township community–and other nearby residents–with access to the benefits traditionally associated with an urban environment (shops, dining, retail, library, offices, etc.) while preserving the structure of an iconic piece of mid-twentieth-century architecture. Finding that these redevelopment plans satisfied requirements for residential zoning and preservation standards for the property, Holmdel Township officially approved Somerset Development to move forward with the redevelopment of Bell Labs in August 2013. The project was a massive undertaking: The lobby was overgrown with plants and the quarter-mile-long roof leaked. Ralph Zucker, chief executive officer and founder of Inspired by Somerset Development, assembled a team of architects, designers, and marketers, including Alexander Gorlin Architects, The Garibaldi Group, Co Op Brand Partners, and NPZ Style + Décor. The township and Inspired by Somerset Development concluded a lease agreement for $0 to house the Holmdel Township branch of the Monmouth County Library at Bell Works. This represented a significant increase in space for the library, which went from to .

Current use and community impact

Bell Works has been described as a "metroburb" by Inspired by Somerset CEO Ralph Zucker, who defined it as a "an urban hub — a core, a metropolis — in a suburban location". According to Bell Works, a metroburb is "a little metropolis in suburbia… A large-scale mixed-use building, with great access, office, retail, entertainment, hospitality, residential, health, wellness, fitness, everything you would find in a metropolis but in a great suburban location." Bell Works’ success as a proof of concept for the metroburb was supported by its new workspace typology, one which used the scale of Bell Works to simulate the density of urban cityscapes within the office while providing a degree of flexibility and modularity that is difficult to achieve outside of a suburban environment. , more than 90 percent of the campus's office space was leased. Today, Bell Works's quarter-mile-long atrium has been reimagined into a publicly accessible pedestrian street with shops, restaurants, healthcare, community services, and more. In addition to offering retail and office space, Bell Works hosts conferences and events, including the annual Fourth of July Fireworks. The building, which is open seven days a week, is home to public assets such as the Holmdel Library and Learning Center along with farmers’ markets and holiday celebrations. It also contains a 285-seat theater, opened in 2024 in what was formerly a lecture hall at the laboratory. Bell Theater is curated by the Axelrod Performing Arts Center located in

Deal In cryptography, DEAL (Data Encryption Algorithm with Larger blocks) is a symmetric block cipher derived from the Data Encryption Standard (DES). Its design was presented by Lars Knudsen at the SAC conference in 1997, and submitted as a proposa ...

. Starting in 2021, the American science-fiction psychological-thriller television series '' Severance'' on

Apple TV+ Apple TV+ is an American subscription over-the-top streaming service owned by Apple. The service launched on November 1, 2019, and it offers a selection of original production film and television series called Apple Originals. The service w ...

used the Bell Works complex as the fictional headquarters of Lumon Industries. Most exterior building shots, parking lot shots, and some interior shots of the ground floors and above the building are used in the show.

References

External links

"Bell Labs"
at Abandoned America {{authority control AT&T buildings Bell Labs Buildings and structures in Monmouth County, New Jersey Commercial buildings in New Jersey International style architecture in New Jersey Eero Saarinen structures Holmdel Township, New Jersey Modernist architecture in New Jersey National Register of Historic Places in Monmouth County, New Jersey New Jersey Register of Historic Places Physics research institutes Research institutes in New Jersey Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in New Jersey 1962 establishments in New Jersey