I've never thought about architecture as much I have since I arrived at IBM. The reason is simple: I never worked in such striking buildings before. I feel like I inhabit works of art.

Starting in the 1950s, longtime CEO Thomas Watson Jr. had the idea that design and architecture were important elements of building a company's brand, so he lined up one famous modernist architect after another to design IBM's buildings. The architects who received commissions since then included Eero Saarinen, who designed the research center in Yorktown Heights, New York, and a factory in Rochester, Minnesota; I.M. Pei, whose firm designed the vast hilltop campus in Somers, New York, and an addition to the former headquarters in Armonk, New York; Edward Larrabee Barnes, who designed the building at 590 Madison Avenue, in Manhattan; and Mies van der Rohe, who designed a skyscraper in downtown Chicago.

The building I spend most of my time in is the headquarters in Armonk, which is a long, horizontal, metal-and-glass clad building that's buried in the woods. It was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates. The lobby is a huge space that feels lid-less. One end rises up to a point like the prow of a ship. If you sit under the prow and look up through the glass at the treetops and sky, you feel a rush of adrenalin. I'm not exaggerating.

My new interest in architecture took me last weekend to the Saarinen show at the Museum of the City of New York. Saarinen is most famous for designing the Jetsons-like TWA terminal at JFK and the St. Louis Arch. IBM's research center is striking in subtler ways. The main hallway runs along the long curved exterior of the building, so scientists and visitors get fantastic views of a huge lawn and a wooded countryside when they walk to and fro. The extraordinary enlivens the routine.

Saarinen is credited by the museum show's curators with pioneering the concept of the rural corporate campus—part noble's estate and part college campus.

The remoteness of these buildings feels odd now, though. The threats of nuclear Armageddon and urban unrest that propelled corporations out of cities in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s are gone. These buildings feel disconnected from society. For me, there's a loneliness, too. After 10 years of working in midtown Manhattan, I miss all the people and buildings crowding in.

Still, in spite of moments of queasiness, my reaction to the change of scenery is overall positive. Like I said at the top, I'm living in art. As far as I'm concerned, that shouldn't be an altogether comfortable experience.