Severance: Explore Real-Life Locations That Built Lumon's World

5. The Starrett-Lehigh Building – New York City (Exterior of Lumon’s Downtown Offices)

In several key scenes, we see Lumon Industries’ downtown office building, a looming, emotionless presence in the city. These exterior shots were filmed at the Starrett-Lehigh Building, a massive Art Deco industrial complex on Manhattan’s west side. With its monolithic, windowless sections and stark, geometric design, the Starrett-Lehigh Building evokes a sense of inescapability and power, mirroring Lumon’s psychological grip on its employees. The building’s rigid symmetry and endless rows of windows create a sense of corporate anonymity, as though no individual matters within the massive entity of Lumon. The choice of this historical industrial building, originally used for warehousing and shipping, emphasizes the dehumanization of Lumon’s workforce—workers are treated less as individuals and more as interchangeable parts in a grander corporate machine. The cold, unfeeling exterior of the Starrett-Lehigh Building perfectly reflects Lumon’s inhumanity, reinforcing the corporate dystopia at the heart of Severance.