Apple’s ‘Death Star’ to be joined by ‘Googleplex’

While much of corporate America is retrenching on the property front, the four most influential technology companies in America are each planning headquarters that could win a Pritzker Architecture Prize for hubris.

Amazon.com this week revealed plans for three verdant bubbles in downtown Seattle, joining Apple’s circular “spaceship”, Facebook’s Frank Gehry-designed open-office complex and a new Googleplex on the list of planned trophy offices.

“It signals a desire, a statement, to say that we’re special, we’re different.