If you're thinking of picking up Dave Egger's new novel, The Circle, in hopes of finding solace by relating to his portrayal of Silicon Valley tech culture, architecture and design critic Alexandra Lange would say: don't get your hopes up. She issued a complete takedown of the novel based on the gross inaccuracies in its portrayal of the architecture of Silicon Valley offices and the work culture that drives the people inside them. She calls out Eggers' architecture as being ripped from the year 2005, and points out his naïveté in giving his heroine complete access to worlds that are really kept secret to those who wouldn't be in the room with Steve Jobs as he thought up the iPod.
She says in closing: "If Eggers had thought harder about physical space, and the real work required to design, create, and maintain those spaces of coding power, The Circle's logo, with its "knitted grid," would have been a far more potent symbol."
· Circular Architecture [Alexandra Lange]