The Endangered 8: 2023
San José's Most Threatened Architectural and Cultural Landmarks
IBM Building 11
Location:
5677 Lexington Avenue
Date:
Built 1958
Architect:
John Savage Bolles
Threat:
Neglect
This former cafeteria and employee lounge is one of the last surviving remnants of IBM’s original Cottle Road Campus, the pioneering and ultra-modern research and manufacturing plant that helped create Silicon Valley. Designed by John Savage Bolles and once famously visited by Nikita Khrushchev, Building 11 and its surrounding art-filled plaza were spared the wrecking ball when most of the surrounding campus was redeveloped in the mid-2000s, but have sat vacant and languishing ever since. Once envisioned as a museum space or community center for the adjacent RAMAC Park, the building is now owned by Western Digital, which has no known plans for the fenced-off modern landmark.
MEDIA COVERAGE
"Nostalgic no more," Metro Silicon Valley, July 11, 2023
Learn More and Take Action!
Check out this 1958 IBM booklet highlighting the Cottle Road Campus, with photographs by Ansel Adams!
Watch a PBS documentary clip and rare silent footage of Nikita Khrushchev's 1959 visit to the Cottle Road Campus and Building 11.
Learn more about architect John S. Bolles and artists Ruth Cravath, Bella Feldman, and Lucienne Bloch, whose work still survives on the property.
See the campus featured in Architectural Forum, June 1958
View 1963 photos of the campus and its modern art collection (Bob Shomler, photographer)
View the IBM Cottle Road Campus Historic Resource Evaluation and Building 11 DPR form (Carey & Company with Basin Research Associates, 2004).
Contact Mayor Matt Mahan and District 2 Councilmember Sergio Jimenez to encourage the City to explore reuse options for Building 11.