A look inside Google's mystifyingly beautiful data centres

Google's extensive real estate portfolio consists of headquarters ranging from brightly colored to industrial-inspired, all with eye-popping architecture and decor details. Although one's understanding of what a Google office looks like has been limited to the spaces where humans work; today the tech giant finally opens the doors of its nine data centers, offering a glimpse of where the Internet—the Internet itself!—actually lives.

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The branch in Hamina, Finland, is designed by midcentury master Alvar Aalto, but in essence these places are all warehouses, filled with cables, tubes, ducts, processors, and gizmos known only to those who operate them. Yet as the photos reveal, the spaces are extraordinary, filled with rainbow hues, mysterious lighting, and endless rows of geometric structures that look exactly the same. The effect? Eye-pleasing symmetry and meticulous order sure to excite certain architecture nerds. Below, two more shots.

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