Mark Zuckerberg, a head of the portal, informed on his Facebook profile about the removal to a new registered office on 30th March. The MPK20 building is located in the Menlo Park campus in Palo Alto in California which is owned by the company. Frank Gehry – a world-famous architect and author of i.a. the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao or Dancing House in Prague, is responsible for the project.
The building is said to be „the largest open space in the world”. The area of the one-storied complex totals 40 000 sq. m and actually it is like one big room. Our aim was to create a perfect space in which our teams could work together – says Zuckerberg. Small areas intended for a team work were divided within the „room”, however, they remained open which enables easy moving and cooperation between employees. Moreover, the MPK20 structure will hold 2800 workers.
A distinguishing feature of the project is a large three-and-a-half-hectare green park situated on the roof of the building. The employees may walk around among over 400 trees and drink a coffee in a cafe located on the roof.
The MPK20 building was designed and built within only three years. The general headquarters of Facebook is a comparatively simple construction made from metal, concrete and glass. Frank Gehry points out that it is aimed at a human and it is also rigid and strict – From the very beginning, Mark wanted to create a space which is modest, practical and effective. He did not want it to be „extravagantly” designed. It was supposed to be flexible and responsive to a changing nature of this kind of a business. We created that building for him – says the architect. We wanted everyone could feel a continuous development in that area. When one enters our buildings, we would like them to feel how many things are to be done in order to communicate the world – adds Mark Zuckerberg.