Monuments Built with Cutting-Edge Technology
In addition to symbolizing human aims, a monument, according to Giedion, Leger and Serf, must be built using cutting-edge materials and techniques.46 When the essay was written in 1942, materials such as light metal, laminated wood arches, and metal trusses enabled long spans of monumental scale. Similarly, the Apple cube uses the latest glass engineering, materials, and fabrication techniques to make a building that awes. The cube is a nearly all-glass structure. The prefabricated glass panels with metal joints are bolted together on site, and the seams between the glass sheets are sealed with silicone caulk, recessed slightly from the surface to remain as unobtrusive as possible. A decade of ongoing collaborations between Apple, structural engineers, and glass fabricators generated technical expertise and the confidence to push the limits of glass. The Apple cube required that the German glass supplier Bischoff Glass Technologies (BGT) and the contractor Seele GmbH fabricate oversized glass fins 32 feet-6 inches long. The existing autoclave could only accommodate up to 20 feet. To meet this challenge, BGT and Seele worked with EOG to develop a way to laminate glass fins in staggered lengths so that they could be mechanically spliced. After building the first cube, BGT and Seele found an aircraft manufacturer who, during downtime, would let them use their aircraft wing autoclave to laminate large panels of glass, with successful results.4' For the Apple Stores in Boston and Sydney (2008), Seele purchased an autoclave that could laminated panels up to 46 feet high. Following the success of these projects, Jobs asked BCJ what could be done with the cube, then insisted on rebuilding the cube with larger panels, which Apple did in 2012 using Seele’s autoclave.48’49 These incremental developments that constantly meet increasing demands further contribute to the monumentality of Apple’s cube. Simultaneously, Apple’s iterative developments in glass have helped to prove that glass can now be a primary material for monumental architecture, as stone and concrete could in prior generations.
Thermodynamic Definition of Monumentality
Monumentality is not only contingent on the most advanced forms of technologies but also on the power and influence necessary to fulfil monumental tasks. According to a thermodynamic explanation of monumentality, archaeologist Bruce Trigger argues,
In human societies, the control of energy constitutes [a] fundamental and universally recognized measure of political power. The most basic way in which power can be symbolically reinforced is through the conspicuous consumption of energy. Monumental architecture, as a highly visible and enduring form of such consumption, plays an important role in shaping the political and economic behavior of human beings.5"
Only a powerful brand like Apple could move fabricators and manufacturers to realize such an ambitious project. In addition to laminating glass with an aircraft wing autoclave, Beijing North Glass (BNG) in China invested six months of research to build a tempering machine large enough to temper 46-foot glass panels for Apple. Besides the size increase, BNG, which was accustomed to prioritizing speed over quality, had to meet the highest quality and precision that Apple demanded. With the new machine, BNG fabricated 41-foot curved glass for the glass drum at Apple IFC Shanghai. By controlling the materials and specialized skills, Apple creates structures that impress, which in turn motivates their collaborators to expand their capabilities; Apple’s brand influences company behaviors with its awe-inspiring presence. The reach extends beyond the company to enable success through partnerships, including the development of Gorilla® Glass by Corning and advancements in structural glass engineering.
There are other measures of Apple and Steve Jobs’s political and financial powers. First is the real estate deal Jobs negotiated with Harry Macklowe, the landlord of the GM Building and its plaza where the cube is located (Figure 6.12). In 2003, Macklowe purchased the GM Building for $1.4 billion. The iconic 50-story skyscraper was designed by Edward Durrell Stone & Associates and Emery Roth & Sons and completed in 1968. Macklowe knew that the
FIGURE 6.12 The cube became a solution to the underused public plaza of the GM Building to the right.
building had two problems: its underused public plaza extending between the building’s entry lobby and the street corner, and the basement retail space. Convinced that the Apple retail store would be the solution to his real estate problems, he repeatedly approached Apple’s vice president of real estate. Steve Jobs had returned to Apple as the CEO in 1996 and had launched the iPod in 2001, but had not yet released the iPhone (2007). Apple was looking to position itself as the undisputable leader in the consumer electronics retail scene, and Macklowe owned the potential retail space. In November 2003, Mack-lowe was invited to a meeting with Jobs and the lead architect Peter Bohlin in Cupertino.52 Jobs presented the idea of a glass cube on the public plaza, with an underground retail store open 24/7. “It took us half an hour to make a deal,”53 said Macklowe. However, the 20-year lease includes an unusual agreement: that Steve Jobs could take the $9 million cube with him upon expiration of the lease.54 Apple’s power to influence business transactions underscores the cube’s monumentality.
Second, Steve Jobs and other members of the cube’s design team hold a patent on the cube’s design.55 While patents are customary in the field of product design, they are nearly nonexistent in architecture. In fact, patent number US D712,067 S, filed for the second version of the cube, shows the glass cube with no foundation or site, as if it were a product — a piece of technology - rather than a building. Akin to Kenneth Frampton’s characterization of Maison de Verre as an enlarged piece of furniture inserted in an 18th-century residential building,36 the cube may be understood as a piece of glass technology inserted into the plaza. Approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office in August 2014, it lists the seven inventors of the cube, including the architects, engineer, and Steve Jobs. The document comprises six pages, five of which are simple line drawings of the cube, and text is strikingly absent. To indicate transparent glass in the elevation drawings, the illustrator used short, parallel diagonal lines, an architectural convention for showing glass. A note on the first page of the patent reads, “The oblique lines in the Figures show transparency and not surface ornamentation.”57 The extraordinary engineering, business acumen, and political maneuvering required for this monumental project strikingly contrast the minimal lines in the drawings and the brevity of the patent. This design patent, which protects the appearance of the cube but says nothing about how it functions (which a utility patent would protect), is consistent with Apple’s approach to intellectual property protection for their products. In the 2016 lawsuit Apple vs. Samsung, Apple was awarded over $500 million for Samsung’s infringement on their smartphone design appearance.58 Paying the significant cost associated with protection of intellectual property is a part of Apple’s business strategy. The cube’s patent is another evidence of their power, which further reinforces the cube’s monumentality.
Moreover, it seems improbable for Apple and a designer other than Jobs to obtain a patent for a building that, despite its striking appearance, uses building technologies that are not unprecedented. By 2014, there were a number of buildings that used structural glass laminated with ionoplast interlayer, including the cable net glass wall at the Time Warner Center, on the opposite corner of Central Park South, by SOM and James Carpenter Design Associates. The idea of a platonic glass structure as a vestibule had already been built by I. M. Pei. This further proves that it is Apple’s power to make things happen that amplifies the cube’s monumentality.
