The season one finale of “Severance” aired final week on Apple TV+. Within the weeks I streamed the Ben Stiller-directed psychological thriller, I actively averted spoilers. So, it was solely when the present wrapped that I found that this dystopian, alternate office actuality Stiller created was really filmed right here in NJ. That’s proper, the company headquarters of Lumon Industries featured on “Severance” is de facto the enduring Bell Works constructing in Holmdel, New Jersey.
From Bell Labs to Bell Works: A Temporary Historical past
Earlier than Bell Works was the two-million-square-foot “metroburb” it’s at present, New Jerseyans could keep in mind it as Bell Phone Laboratories relationship all the way in which again to the Nineteen Sixties. The Monmouth County complicated was praised for its achievements in science and expertise. Most famously, it’s the place the place Karl Guthe Jansky invented radio astronomy.
For greater than 40 years (up till the early 2000s), the constructing itself served as a analysis and improvement facility for Bell Telphone Firm and later, AT&T. It was additionally one of many final initiatives accomplished by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen. Its glossy, industrial, modernist design made it some of the modern buildings in all of NJ and all through the U.S.
The property was deserted in 2007 and hit the actual property market in 2008. Bell Labs was bought in 2013 and underwent a $27 million renovation—reopening as Bell Works in 2019, a mixed-use hub with co-working areas, retail outlets, eating places and community-building alternatives.
For an in-depth take a look at this laboratory-turned-community heart, click on right here.
Why Did “Severance” Select to Movie in New Jersey?
In an interview with Selection, “Severance” manufacturing designer, Jeremy Hindle, famous that Saarinen’s modernist buildings have been among the many many inspirations for the present’s setting. That is how the crew stumbled upon Bell Works.
“All these corporations within the ‘50s and ‘60s, they’d a lot fashion, they’d probably the most stunning areas, and so they have been happy with what they have been doing. They believed in it and their aesthetic was a part of that. It was about energy and management and commerce and every part rolled into one,” Hindle advised Selection.
Stiller, Hindle and “Severance” creator Dan Erickson have been reportedly drawn to the complicated’s measurement—which spans a whopping 470 acres and the way it shared an analogous aesthetic to what they envisioned. As well as, the mixed-use constructing’s present objective is an ironic juxtaposition to the present’s total commentary on work-life steadiness. That’s, the place your job is solely separate from your own home life and vice versa. Satirically, it’s every part that the Bell Works of at present isn’t—a spot the place work, life and play are scarily intertwined.
Hindle constructed Lumon’s stark white, albeit green-carpeted, and labyrinth-like inside on three soundstages. Nonetheless, the outside photographs of Lumon Industries are of none apart from Bell Works in Holmdel, NJ.
Lumon exterior featured on “Severance,” filmed at Bell Works in Holmdel, NJ l Photograph through Apple TV+ trailer
Bell Works in Holmdel, NJ as Lumon Headquarters
Other than aesthetics, the showrunners believed that the restored Bell Labs constructing as soon as mirrored the identical message of the sequence. “Work designed to do work,” mentioned Hindle. From the surface, Lumon (or Bell Works) seems glossy and orderly. There’s a retro, midcentury vibe imparted from Saarinen’s authentic design.
Mark S. (Adam Scott) is usually proven within the constructing’s parking zone. A mere speck meant to insinuate how insignificant an worker is to a big, fictitious company resembling Lumon.
Stiller additionally went on the report concerning the resolution to make use of Bell Works because the Lumon headquarters for “Severance.”
He advised Selection, “It had such distinctive structure and this stunning, unimaginable scale…the concept was that it is a enormous, multinational company, it made sense that this may very well be their headquarters and that under it may very well be the place they maintain the severed staff. And so the design of the severed ground actually got here out of discovering that location first. And this form of mid-century structure, that additionally would make sense that down under, for the severed individuals, they by no means see the surface world, so the corporate wouldn’t essentially need to renovate or improve or replace or change, as a result of these individuals are by no means actually seeing what’s happening within the exterior world.”
You’ll be able to stream season one among “Severance” now on Apple TV+
