Though the Meyrin, Switzerland HQ for CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) looks like a sci-fi movie set—more so even than offices that are trying to look like sci-fi movie sets—this massive, industrial complex actually houses a team of over 2,500 physicists, engineers and researchers, along with "some of the most complex and vast instruments on earth," according to Design Boom. Swiss photographer Andri Pol found the unadorned, completely functional and machine-filled office space utterly fascinating when he set about capturing it for his (rather bluntly titled) book Inside CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research. "We talked about places without pictures, about institutions and facilities in our society that are known but not generally accessible," says the author about the private, warehouse-like facility. "Everyday life in the Vatican, the World Bank from inside, the people at CERN—can photographs communicate the ordinary, typical, and inimitable qualities of a place?" Mull over the deep questions below, then head to Design Boom for the full gallery.
· Andri Pol takes a look inside CERN's swiss headquarters [Design Boom]
· All Office Spaces posts [Curbed National]