The mysterious origins of the Google phone box

The clamour of enthusiasm for the new Google Voice phone boxes set to appear in colleges and airports across the US calls to mind a story I heard from one Google employee when visiting their London base last year with Simon Usborne, who was writing his own adulatory take on the web giant.

As the piece mentions, the corridors of Google’s Victoria HQ at the time were home to a number of branded versions of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s classic K6 design (Not to be confused with Ks 2 and 3, also by Scott). Asked where they came from, one Googler leaned in conspiratorially and whispered to Simon and I of their origins: “They just arrived one day, and noone could work out who’d ordered them.” Supposedly someone at the company, then in the first heady throes of its search domination, had over-zealously arranged for the customised boxes’ construction and delivery, but who it was remained a mystery.

(Pic via ZDNet)

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