They also have a former HQ on the outskirts of, IIRC, Swindon in the UK, which was/seemed abandoned for years. I was used in one of the Brosnan James Bond movies when it was first built.
Yes it was in Swindon. The EMEA headquarters.
Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)
81–90 of 215 posts
Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
HR wall slogans are cringey when still drying on the wall. They are even cringier in a ruin.
The most cringey one to me is the Philips one "Let's make things better". Funny enough their slide down into relative obscurity started right after introducing that slogan. Up to that point they were one of the powerhouses of technology. Today they are still active in Medical, TVs and light, a faint shadow of what they used to be.
You mean its corporate ghost (aka brand name) is still active in these things. Afaik they've divested everything apart from medical.
Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)
#83I love the tone of this, it’s like the musings of an explorer who discovered a jungle city abandoned by a mysterious civilization. “there were old wall slogans inside that must have been added to motivate and inspire the employees” … “ the tall building had several brick structures on the lower main level. He suspected that those structures probably had plants and ferns in them so that important business clients and…
Archaeologists have found inscriptions referring to the cult of "Six Sigma", which is hypothesized to be a primitive form of ritual statistical magic.
Or perhaps stochastical magic
Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
The most cringey one to me is the Philips one "Let's make things better". Funny enough their slide down into relative obscurity started right after introducing that slogan. Up to that point they were one of the powerhouses of technology. Today they are still active in Medical, TVs and light, a faint shadow of what they used to be.
You mean its corporate ghost (aka brand name) is still active in these things. Afaik they've divested everything apart from medical.
Light is definitely theirs as well, and even though the TVs and white goods are made abroad they are still just as much Philips's creations as Intel is making CPUs.
Edit: this comment is false. Please ignore.
Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)
#85This looks like a set piece from the game Control! If they ever filmed a movie version of that game (which they probably shouldn't, as it could never do the game justice), they should do it at that location...
It also looks very like a building in the Amazon TV series "Homecoming".
Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)
#86I can't help but feel sad for the loss of engineering innovation. Yes, the pieces of Motorola live on, but there is a certain magic when there are a lot of big pieces working together (like radios, semiconductors, entertainment, Etc)
Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)
#87I love the tone of this, it’s like the musings of an explorer who discovered a jungle city abandoned by a mysterious civilization. “there were old wall slogans inside that must have been added to motivate and inspire the employees” … “ the tall building had several brick structures on the lower main level. He suspected that those structures probably had plants and ferns in them so that important business clients and…
> structures
Multiple sacrificial altars surrounded by balconies from which the faithful could watch.
Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)
#88> On the business and entertainment side of things, there will be Top Golf, restaurants, a hotel, and a shopping and entertainment center, all serviced by parking lots to encourage visitors from further afield. The area also hopes to offer concerts, movies, and ice-skating.
A similar thing happened to the IBM campus in Austin. "The Domain" is essentially land that was formerly owned by IBM. I believe there are plans to further develop the remaining site as well.
I found this particular statement really funny, as there's a Top Golf adjacent to the current IBM Austin site.
Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)
#89Ugh. That hurts my soul. I used to work there in the late 90s at its peak. door 13. good place, amazing engineers. So sad.
Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)
#90Sorry for the expression but "holy shit!". I worked in Motorola for 10 years from the late 90's. I was based in Europe but travelled to Schaumburg every two months or so (or to Phoenix). It is really a shock to see this place abandoned - last time I was there (15 years ago) it was very much alive. It has been a long time since I had such a nostalgic squeeze of heart.
The whole story as presented in the article and comments here is a bit misleading. None of these buildings were "abandoned", at least not in any practical sense. The buildings documented here were old (from the 70s I believe) and full of asbestos and things like that and had really outlived their usefulness, and the very large piece of land they occupied had become extremely valuable. The buildings were still fully occupied when the company decided to sell the campus and relocate to new headquarters in downtown Chicago and move manufacturing to a new facility in Elgin.
Once sold, the company moved out. Shortly after, demolition began, and that's when these pictures were taken. The damage is from demolition, not from the normal "abandoned for 10 years deterioration" you see on those Urban Explorer Youtube videos. People worked in these buildings just a few years ago, and a lot of them had been remodeled somewhat recently and were actually pretty nice inside. The 6-story building with the large atrium was newer than the other parts and is still there and the new owner/developer is hoping to continue to use it as an office building (last I heard anyway).
Motorola also still occupies the 14-story building that used to be the world headquarters as well as another large building on the property. The real story here is much more mundane: a big company sold off some valuable real estate as part of a move to chase a younger workforce in downtown Chicago (jury's still out on that decision, especially with a more WFH-focused future).