For followers of “Severance,” the hit Apple TV+ thriller a couple of mysterious company the place workers’ minds are actually break up between work and private life, the unsettling world of Lumon Industries looks like a dystopian nightmare.
However what in the event you might step inside that chilly, company labyrinth in actual life?
Effectively, you possibly can.
The imposing, glass-and-steel headquarters of Lumon isn’t only a Hollywood set — it’s an actual constructing in Holmdel, New Jersey.
Recognized in the present day as Bell Works, the large complicated was as soon as Bell Labs, the analysis and improvement arm of AT&T.
Inbuilt 1962 and designed by famed architect Eero Saarinen, the sprawling mid-century construction was a futuristic hub of scientific innovation. It’s the place a few of the most essential technological developments of the twentieth century — together with the laser, the cellphone and even the invention of cosmic microwave background radiation — had been developed.
Bell Labs was so influential that its researchers received 9 Nobel Prizes. However after AT&T’s company restructuring within the Nineteen Eighties and the breakup of the Bell System, the once-thriving establishment started to fade.
By 2007, Bell Labs had been deserted, sitting empty for years — till builders stepped in.
In 2013, the constructing was repurposed into a contemporary mixed-use house with workplaces, retail shops, eating places and occasion venues, reopening as Bell Works.
Whereas the brand new iteration embraces its previous, its transformation is a far cry from its authentic imaginative and prescient as a cutting-edge analysis facility. It was that mix of historical past and eerie, company grandeur that made Bell Works the right setting for “Severance.”
Although a lot of the present is filmed on soundstages, key exterior photographs and choose inside scenes had been shot at Bell Works, making it a vital pilgrimage web site for die-hard followers.
The second Mark (Adam Scott) pulls into the huge, symmetrical car parking zone or walks by way of the grand, mirrored entrance, viewers are stepping inside an actual, tangible place.
The present’s unsettling world could also be fictional, however its structure could be very actual.
Manufacturing designer Jeremy Hindle was immediately drawn to Bell Works for its imposing aesthetic, which seamlessly aligned with the present’s themes of company management and psychological isolation.
“They really did try to create this perfect working, living world,” Hindle informed Curbed of Bell Labs’ authentic design. “People had dance shows, their own farmers’ markets — they had everything in that place.”
After all, in “Severance,” Lumon’s company world is something however utopian.
The constructing’s gleaming, reflective glass, lengthy symmetrical hallways and cavernous areas tackle a extra sinister tone, reinforcing the present’s theme of staff trapped in a system that strips them of autonomy.
The labyrinthine severed flooring, the place workers are reduce off from their outdoors identities, was constructed on a soundstage, however the general aesthetic owes a lot to Saarinen’s mid-century imaginative and prescient.
For these paying shut consideration, Bell Works seems in a number of key moments all through the sequence.
The atrium — as soon as dwelling to three,600 timber, shrubs and vegetation — makes an look when Mark arrives at work.
One other eerie sequence exhibits Helly R. (Britt Decrease) receiving her mind implant inside one of many constructing’s extra sterile, modernist areas. Even the car parking zone performs a vital function, the place Mark finds a notice on his windshield — a breadcrumb within the present’s rising thriller.
The most effective half? Not like Mark and his fellow Macro Knowledge Refinement crew members, you received’t want a mind implant or a severance process to discover the constructing.
Bell Works is open to the general public, and guests can freely stroll by way of the identical hallways seen in “Severance,” marvel at its towering glass facade or seize a espresso from one in all its on-site cafes.
Situated simply an hour from New York Metropolis, the power has remodeled right into a energetic hub the place individuals work, store and dine.
However regardless of the trendy updates, there’s nonetheless an eerie familiarity for “Severance” followers.
The mid-century structure, the huge symmetrical areas and the sterile, company environment all stay intact — making it really feel like Lumon Industries could possibly be working just under the floor.
For these trying to immerse themselves on the planet of “Severance,” Bell Works provides the closest expertise attainable. You possibly can stand the place Mark stood, stroll the identical halls as Helly and take within the unsettling grandeur of a spot that, in one other timeline, may need been your office — minus the memory-erasing microchip, after all.
And, fortunately, if you depart, you’ll nonetheless keep in mind each second of your go to.
