HOWARD HUGHES'S AIRCRAFT HANGARS, NOW GOOGLE'S LA CAMPUS
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A bit of history
Howard Hughes began buying farmland at the edge of Culver City in 1940 to build a larger Hughes Aircraft Company facility, and during World War II his team built a massive wooden hangar there to construct the H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" flying boat, completed in 1943. Hughes piloted the aircraft on its only flight, over Long Beach Harbor, in 1947. By the mid-1990s the former Hughes hangars had been converted into Hollywood sound stages, and the surrounding land was redeveloped as the mixed-use Playa Vista neighborhood. Those historic hangars are now part of Google's Playa Vista campus, preserved and adapted for its offices.