General Motors Technical Center
The General Motors Technical Center is the primary design and engineering center for General Motors, located in Warren, Michigan, United States. It was designed by Eero Saarinen and Argonaut Realty, with a landscape designed by Thomas Church, it opened in stages in the 1950s through 1970s. A railroad track runs north–south through the Tech Center, dividing it into west and east campuses, each with its own central rectangular lake.
GM chairman Alfred P. Sloan and research director Charles F. Kettering devised the Tech Center to separate the company's research and development activities from its other divisions. At the urging of GM executive Harley Earl, Sloan hired Eliel Saarinen and Robert Swanson in 1944 to draw up the initial plans. Material shortages postponed the beginning of construction to 1949; the initial part of the complex, overseen by Eero Saarinen, was dedicated on May 16, 1956, and included seven clusters of buildings. Additional structures and expansions were constructed over the next two decades. A major renovation in the late 1990s and early 2000s added the Vehicle Engineering Center. As part of a further renovation in the early 21st century, further buildings were constructed, including the Wallace Innovation Center and Design West in the 2020s.
The complex is composed mostly of low-rise buildings in the mid-century modern style. The older west campus originally included buildings housing five divisions, while the buildings in the later east campus did not share as many architectural features. The landscape design consists of trees, lawns, water features, and roads placed around the complex. The original buildings share design features, such as facades of glass, enameled steel, and colorful glazed brick. The interiors are arranged on modular grids, with varying materials and color palettes, and there are numerous artworks spread across the grounds. The Technical Center received praise from both contemporary and retrospective observers and, as Saarinen's first solo design, influenced his later work. The complex has received the American Institute of Architects' Twenty-five Year Award, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is designated a Michigan State Historic Site and a National Historic Landmark.
History
Development
By the 1940s, General Motors was becoming one of the United States' largest companies and wished to consolidate research and development activities in one location. GM chairman Alfred P. Sloan wanted a campus in suburban Detroit, separate from the company's factories and management facilities, to house the company's R&D activities. He proposed a technical campus in conjunction with Charles F. Kettering, GM's research director, who wanted to improve productivity by relocating research activities away from production lines. Kettering and Sloan first discussed plans for the Technical Center in March 1944 and presented plans to GM's board of directors that December. GM obtained a site north of Detroit, near Thirteen Mile and Mound roads, for the Technical Center. GM acquired the first from Henry Halmich for about. The site, located in the suburb of Warren, abutted a railroad line and was a 30-minute drive from the General Motors Building in Detroit. At the time, the site was farmland.Design
Sloan initially envisioned developing utilitarian structures, a position espoused by Kettering, who did not care for an architecturally distinguished campus. GM's vice president of styling, Harley Earl, encouraged Sloan to develop a visually distinctive complex with a proper architect. Sloan eventually agreed to Earl's proposal after convincing one skeptical board member, and GM officials visited Albert Kahn's nearby Ethyl Corporation complex and the Cranbrook Educational Community for inspiration. The partnership of Eliel Saarinen and Robert Swanson began drawing plans for GM's technical campus in late 1944. The initial plans called for five buildings to be arranged around an artificial lake, designed with the landscape architect Thomas Church. The plans called for interconnected buildings with ground-floor parking and lakefront views; dirt from the lake would have been used to create terraces around the buildings. The plans, designed in the Art Moderne and International styles, resembled GM's 1939 World's Fair pavilion, which Eliel's son Eero had helped design. Hugh Ferriss drew renderings of the plans, which were circulated widely in the architectural media.The plans were announced at a luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria New York on July 24, 1945. Though GM did not divulge the exact cost, multiple sources estimated the cost at $20 million. Saarinen & Swanson were formally hired in September 1945, and GM appointed the first administrative staff for the Technical Center the same month. Hubell, Roth and Clark were hired as the engineers. A groundbreaking ceremony took place on October 23, and GM began soliciting bids for the first contracts, related to drainage, that December. By 1946, GM had been forced to pause development of its technical center due to post–World War II material shortages. GM fired Saarinen & Swanson, focusing instead on its existing product line.
In 1948, GM rehired Saarinen, Saarinen & Associates to revise the original plans, the cost of which had increased significantly. Eero Saarinen, by then a partner in the firm, simplified the original plans, designing a complex of rectangular buildings partially inspired by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's IIT Academic Campus. The plans incorporated more of Eero's own ideas, shifting away from his father's design principles. Due to GM's requirement that each division's structures be physically separated, the buildings were split into multiple groups, again surrounding a lake. GM also wanted low-rise buildings rather than skyscrapers, which necessitated a sprawling complex. Saarinen's revised plans initially called for a 10-story tower adjoining a central lake, but when the tower was canceled, he substituted it with large water fountains and a tall water tower. Increasing costs forced Saarinen to downsize some of the other buildings as well. Saarinen's associate J. Henderson Barr drew up renderings of the various sections of the complex.
Construction
In May 1949, GM announced that it would begin constructing the Technical Center after four years of design work and delays. The construction of the Technical Center was to free up space at GM's other facilities. GM hired Bryant & Detwiler Co. of Detroit as the construction contractor, and it hired Smith, Hinchman and Grylls as the engineers. At the time, the first buildings were scheduled to open in mid-1950, and the complex was scheduled to be completed in 1953. Excavations for the first buildings' sites began in July 1949. Work proceeded quickly enough that the first three buildings, for the engineering department, were nearly completed by mid-1950, a year after work started. Although many contractors balked at constructing the engineering office building's novel framework, a local firm was able to construct it for little more than the cost of a conventional steel frame. Some parts of the buildings, such as glazed brick walls, were manufactured on site. GM also developed several testing and support facilities for the various divisions, such as a test track and wind tunnel.The first three structures opened September 6, 1951, and the test track opened that year. Concurrently, GM announced further details of its plans, which called for glass-walled structures with brick panels, as well as open plan spaces without pillars. Work on the final cluster of buildings in the original campus began in May 1952, and a metallurgy building, the first of the research laboratories, opened that June. The process development and styling divisions were also under development. GM subsidiary Chevrolet announced in 1953 that it would build three structures at the southeast corner of the original campus. Another GM subsidiary, Fisher Body, announced the same year that it would build three of its own structures there. The Chevrolet and Fisher Body complexes were part of a $1 billion expansion plan for GM. At this point, the original campus was half complete. Workers had moved into the engineering research and fuel blend buildings by November 1953.GM continued to acquire land for the complex through 1954; the final plots cost the company up to. By that year, only one of the complex's original departments had not yet moved into their buildings at the GM Tech Center, and some Chevrolet employees had already moved into the Chevrolet complex. Numerous buildings opened in 1954, including a service administration building, process development buildings, and gas turbine test building. Work on the Fisher Body complex continued through 1955. The wind tunnel, the styling buildings, the isotope laboratory, and the Fisher Body buildings all opened that year. After the last structure in the original campus was completed in late 1955, workers landscaped the site through the next year. GM announced in April 1956 that the complex would be dedicated the next month; GM plants across the United States scheduled public open houses to celebrate the complex's completion. On May 15, a day before the scheduled opening, GM officials buried a time capsule on the complex, to be opened 25 years later.
Operation
The original campus was opened on May 16, 1956, with a ceremony that was broadcast to GM facilities across the United States. Indonesian president Sukarno attended the event, while US president Dwight D. Eisenhower prepared a speech that was read at the opening. The facility cost the company approximately $100 million, of which $60 million had been spent on the buildings. Initially, it spanned, with 25 structures. The Tech Center employed 4,000 people, and its completion prompted other businesses to relocate nearby. The complex was so large that it had its own fire department, hospital, utilities, and 600 maintenance staff. Its presence helped turn Warren into "a mecca for the latest and greatest in the automotive world", as the Detroit Free Press described it.When it was completed, the Tech Center was used for R&D, allowing GM's subsidiaries to consolidate their R&D activities in one place. In addition to administrative offices, the complex housed GM's research, process development, styling, and engineering departments, four of GM's ten major divisions at the time. Sloan wrote that the Tech Center was intended "not to manufacture products but to promote science, advanced mechanical arts and styling in an atmosphere of study and experimentation". Specialized facilities, such as isotope labs and hot and cold rooms, allowed the research development to test out materials and technologies, along with conducting research into more obscure technologies. Other buildings were used for a wide range of activities; for instance, the engineering division developed things such as transmissions and programming languages at the Tech Center, while the styling division designed their ergonomic vehicle interiors there. New vehicle models were developed there before they were released to the public. The complex also hosted events such as the Feminine Auto Show.