Ever since 1950 plans are underway for a substantial expansion and GM begins to purchase additional property in Warren, bringing its holdingsto 813 acres by 1954. This included a parcel of approximately 200 acres to the east of the part of the Technical Center then under construction, another 200 acres to the west across Mound Road, and a small parcel to the south across 12 Mile Road.

Throughout the construction period, GM required revisions of original plans and designs. Among the first changes, the office tower that stood in the central lake is removed from the program. Several technical facilities are also planned to be added to the Technical Center construction program to meet the specialized needs of GM’s central staffs.
June 1953 –
Construction begins on the largest development planned for the east side of the railroad tracks, originally called the Chevrolet-Fisher Body Engineering Center. Eero Saarinen served as a consultant to Argonaut Realty. A site within the east campus was set aside for a future development as well. The area west of Mound Road was also set aside for future development.

The center has been in expansion since its beginning. The most recent intervention has been the new Vehicle Engineering Center, part of a 4 year renovation project (1999-2003).

Type of change and dates: Additions, 1956-1970
New buildings were added to the facility every few years. All were designed by GM’s in-house architects in the Argonaut Realty Division. For the most part, they were more utilitarian structures that made use of some of the architectural vocabulary of the campus.
The Incinerator (now General Mail) Building is constructed on the parcel south of 12 Mile Road.

From 1970 to 1985 the new buildings added to GM’s Warren complex are further removed from the architectural vocabulary established by Eero Saarinen, presumably to lower their cost.

Type of change and dates: Renovation and most current expansion, 1999-2003
Circumstances/reasons for change: In 1999 General Motors announced it would concentrate its engineering resources. Within the next 3-5 years, it focused on 3 product development centers (Warren and Pontiac, Michigan and Russelsheim, Germany centers) and 8 local
engineering centers.
Effects of changes: The key element in the company’s investment on the Warren Campus, the new VEC building, consists of an eight-story, 960,000-square-foot office tower notched into the existing two-story structure of the Fisher Body building. Other projects in the GM Technical Center are a new visitor’s center, the rehabilitation of several offices, vehicle testing and manufacturing buildings, construction of new parking decks. and infrastructure improvements.
Even though the center has expanded in every direction, GM argues that the historic character of Saarinen’s design is still present. The
additions have not altered the overall design of the complex.
Persons/organizations involved:General Motors Corporation, Kaplan-McLaughlin-Diaz (KMD), Ove Arup & Partners (collaboration with KMD), Parsons Brinckerhoff Construction Services, program manager, Building Conservation Associates (BCA), MKThink, consulting company.

Of site: Industry/Processing/Extraction facility
Of principal components:
Styling Center - now Design Center
Water Tower – same use
Gas Turbine Test Building- Research Engineering Lab North
Isotope Research Laboratory- now Research Chemical laboratory
Dynamometer Building- same use

Chevrolet-Fisher Body Engineering Center:
Chevrolet- now Powertrain
Fisher Body- now VEC
GM Photographic- now part of new VEC West

Ternstedt Divisional Offices and Central Engineering Building –
now Chevrolet Central Office
Service Section- Facilities Operations
GM Training Center and Chevrolet School of Merchandising and Management –
now GM Management Training Center

Landscaping and open areas
Parking structures
Visitor Center, etc.

Comments: Apart from its operative functions, GM’s Technical Center has attended visitors since its inauguration in 1956.

Of whole building/site: Over the years, the Technical Center has evolved directly with the needs of the corporation. Exterior additions have been constructed as the need for additional and new types of space continued to grow and the interiors have been continually altered to allow for the most efficient work environment. Still, the overall character of the Technical Center is argued to be today very much as it was when the last historic building was completed. Although new buildings have been added to the complex, architects and preservationists seem to agree the original design concept has allowed this to occur without compromising the original design intent.

Unfortunately,the landscape in other parts of the campus has been less in keeping with the the Saarien and Church’s original plan. The demand for additional surface parking led to the removal of landscape elements which served to screen parking areas and provide visual relief.

Of principal components: Very little restoration work has had to be done (painting, etc.). Saarinen’s structures have been
excellently preserved because maintenance is easier thanks to their good design. However, in the early 1970s, the lobby of GM’s Styling
Section administration building was altered. The white fiberglass receptionist'.s desk and the hand painted stainless steel sculpture by artist Buell Mullen were removed. In 2003, GM simply put up copied variations of these two works of art where they once stood.

Of other elements: Landscaping in the west campus has been preserved to maintain its original impression. The Water Tower, sculptures and fountains are also original and have been very well maintained.

Of surrounding area: Warren has grown to be Michigan’s third largest city. Many corporate headquarters can be found in its suburban
environment. Daimler Chrysler’s Dodge City manufacturing complex is also in the proximity. The city prides itself in its “Small town lifestyle, big city commerce”.

Located in Warren, twelve miles north of downtown Detroit, a highly developed, suburban area.GM owns all the lots adjacent to Saarinen’s Technical Center. There are no apparent threats of development. Its recent renovation has been supervised by BCA.

Visual relations: The GM Campus structures create visual relations within the landscape and between themselves.
Functional relations: Buildings within correlate for operational reasons. The different stages of research and design are followed from one building to the next.

Throughout the course of the design and construction of the Technical Center, the architects working on the project were faced with the
problem of constructing modern curtain walled buildings during an early period in the development of this type of architecture. Saarinen was assisted by GM’s engineers. together they developed innovative solutions to a number of technical problems.
Among the most innovative building techniques employed at the Technical Center were rubber mountings, or gaskets, used to make the seals around the glazed and porcelain enameled steel panels in the curtain walls watertight. This technique was developed after caulking applied to the windows of the first buildings constructed at the Technical Center failed, allowing water to leak into the interiors. Neoprene rubber gaskets used for this purpose had been developed by GM’s Inland Manufacturing Division for the installation of automobile windshields, and, through a collaborative effort between the architects and GM, were adapted for use in the construction of the Technical Center.
Another new technique was used in the production of glazed brick for the distinctive end walls of various structures in the Technical Center. After consultation between the architect and GM’s AC Spark Plug Division, which used ceramics in the manufacture of its products, a glazing compound was produced that allowed the bricks to retain their color. The bricks were then made on site in a special kiln.

The prefabricated metal panels used, along with glass, in the curtain walls of the Technical Center were also innovative because they
employed a honeycomb patterned paper core sandwiched between two porcelain enameled sheets of steel to provide insulation. This
technology was borrowed from the aircraft industry. At the Technical Center, Saarinen was among the first architects to employ these
panels for building construction.

In addition to GM engineers, the Styling Staff assisted Saarinen with the Technical Center, helping develop the first completely luminous
ceiling through the design of modular molded plastic pans that allowed no reflections or shadows to be produced. These were used in the Styling Staff’s drafting studios to assist in the design of new automobiles.

The architects and building engineers working on the Technical Center also developed innovative construction techniques independently of GM’s engineers. The most significant of these was the prefabricated aluminum extrusion frame used in the curtain walls. In order to hang the curtain walls from the steel frame of the buildings, exterior steel columns were wrapped with extruding aluminum to which the other materials in the curtain walls were attached. This would eventually become a common building technique.

Perhaps the most remarkable new construction methodology occurred at the domed Styling Auditorium, which was designed to allow the
viewing of new car designs under a variety of lighting conditions. Standing 65 feet high, with a span of 186 feet, the concept for this
self-supporting aluminum clad dome was derived from the pressure vessel industry, which manufactured industrial metal tanks.
Constructed of aluminum plates, the stressed metal skin of the dome was attached to the base of the structure by a tension ring, which also supported an interior acoustical dome serving as the auditorium’s ceiling.

The tech center is the world'.s first campus of buildings designed with the specific function to support a corporation's technological research and development. When inaugurated, seventy-eight newspapers cover the event and an unprecedented broadcasting by NBC transmits it to all parts of the nation. Hollywood stars were invited to attend and unveil the glistening titanium Firebird II (presented together with the Tech Center). An address by President Dwight D. Eisenhower was broadcasted via radio from Washington, D.C. The event was reported as symbolic of the promise of technology in postwar America. General Motors’ progress echoed the excitement and confidence 1950s America had in itself.

Many innovations in the automotive industry have been carried out in the Technical Center.
Soon after the first GM personnel relocated to Warren, they started work on the advanced research and engineering projects the campus was constructed to facilitate. A prime example was the Isotope Research Laboratory, which was part of the Research Staff facilities. The Styling Staff studied human measurement data in order to develop a system for designing car interiors contoured to the human body. The advanced computer facilities of the Engineering Staff allowed GM to devise GMR DYANA, a new computer programming language that facilitated the use of computers to answer engineering problems. At the laboratories of the Research Staff, work on the oxidation of automobile exhausts carried out in the late 1950s played a role in the development of the catalytic converter, which reduces harmful emissions that produce smog.

The ultimate goal of the innovative work of the Technical Center was to allow GM to improve its production methods and manufacture new and better automobiles. As was often the case in the automobile industry, innovations did not mean the production of entirely new automotive technology but incremental changes in products over the course of several years. These constant innovations resulted in automobiles that improved over time, such as the Chevrolet Corvette, recognized as one of the great American automobiles.

The GM Tech Center’s the pioneer of the American suburban/corporate campus of low-rise, curtain-walled pavilions in a park-like setting.
Its arrangement of International Style facilities around a rectangular lake was clearly inspired by Mies van der Rohe’s design for the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Instead of making it a pedestrian campus, Saarinen drew inspiration from GM’s principal product:the automobile. As Saarinen stated: “The Center was, of course, designed at automobile scale and the changing vistas were conceived to be seen as one drove around the project.”

Saarinen with being the first to translate Mies van der Rohe’s austere purity to a sleeker, more American package. The Modern Movement’s architectural forms became thinner, slicker, and more geometrically classicizing than they were before.
GM’s principal need was the provision of flexible interior spaces that would allow for the regular rearrangement of office and technical areas. Saarinen had to eliminate interior columns to create large open areas, using moveable partition walls to delineate offices and shops. Utilities and mechanical equipment were installed within this modular framework to facilitate alterations. Another of GM’s main requests was to avoid the usual drab appearance of factory buildings. The sleek, modular design was articulated on the exterior through exposed I-beams that were placed at regular intervals, usually every five feet. Attention to design is apparent in the machinery within shop and technical areas, even the color of such equipment was carefully considered. This mix of design and technology is most evident in the Dynamometer Building at the Engineering Center. Here exhaust stacks that carry emissions from the dynamometers that test engines become the iconic image of the building as machine, one of the most recognizable elements of the Technical Center.

Canonical status: The importance of Saarinen’s achievement has continued to receive recognition (in 1985 when the AIA awarded the Technical Center its 25 Year Award for enduring significance in the development of American architecture). Architectural historians have recognized the significance of the GM Technical Center as well: Henry-Russell Hitchcock considered the Technical Center “a major example of American industrial building raised at the behest of a corporate client into the realm of distinguished architecture,” and Saarinen “one of the leaders of post-war architecture in the United States....” Allan Temko saw the Technical Center as one of the first significant examples of the International Style in the post-war United States, as Saarinen’s design was “one of the first major triumphs of the new architecture in this country. Where else, in the early 1950’s, could one see industrial technology brought to bear so imaginatively on so many vexing problems of contemporary design?”
Several architectural historians have commented that, at the Technical Center, Saarinen created an American interpretation of the
International Style.

The Technical Center remains a preeminent corporate research and development center, the site of some of GM’s most important
technological advances, it is architecturally significant as one of the most influential examples of International Style Architecture in American Corporate developments and as an outstanding example of Eero Saarinen’s work.
The success of its original design can be attributed to Saarinen’s ability to achieve a work of architectural art while at the same time satisfying GM’s need for a functional, flexible workplace that could respond to the changing needs of technology.

Using a specific design vocabulary, Saarinen and Church created a rectilinear plan that produced a unity between the landscape and
Saarinen’s distinctive modernist buildings. With its large open spaces and wide vistas, Saarinen and Church created a classical landscape that effectively extended the geometry of the buildings directly into the landscape. It is no accident to call the campus the “Versailles of Industry.”
The Technical Center’s almost neoclassical gardens borrow heavily from the controlled and ordered regime of 18th century landscaping.
A 22-acre rectilinear lake forms the central element of the Technical Center landscape. A stainless steel water tower resembling a piece of modern sculpture rises 132 feet on the northeast corner of that lake. On the west side, a gigantic fountain forming a wall of water 115 feet long and 50 feet high was added to introduce “vertical focal points” to the landscape after the office tower was removed from his original plan (1950). A smaller decorative fountain by Alexander Calder, was placed at the northwest corner of the lake.

The intention of the landscape design was to unify the Technical Center, while at the same time producing variety through the different vistas, the use of water features, and the contrast between the open spaces and the geometric volumes of buildings. Reminiscent of the contrast in Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s Kupfergraben plan in Berlin (1830s), where cubic forms and extruded rectangles where dispersed in a open natural landscape.
This search for variety is reflected in the building designs as well, with variations between the curtain walls found on administrative and shop areas, as well as the use of colorful brick on end-walls that starkly contrast with the uniformity of glass and steel curtain walls on the primary facades. While maintaining an overall horizontallity, the differing heights of parts of buildings also create a certain sequence. Saarinen described the effect as “a controlled rhythm of high and low buildings, of glass and brick walls, of buildings seen between trees and buildings open to the square.”

1. BCA Research files on the General Motors Technical Center.
(New York Office, Claudia Kavenaugh).

2. General Motors Public Relations Staff,, Where Today Meets Tomorrow: General Motors Technical Center, photographs by Ezra Stoller, GM, Detroit, 1956.

3. MKThink Website: Strategies – Design Center Realignment, Design – General Motors Vehicle Engineering Center and GM Visitor Center.

4. “Versailles of Industry” website
www.carofthecentury.com

5. GM Corporate History Website:
http://www.gm.com/company/corp_info/history/

6. KMD Website:
http://www.kmd-arch.com/

7. Parsons Brinckerhoff Website: http://www.pbworld.com/projects/featured/gm_technical_center_53321.asp

8. Pundit, Hermann, Schinkel’s Berlin: A Study in Enviromental Planning, Chapter: The Transformation of Central Berlin, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1972.

5.2 Principal publications (in chronological order):

1. Article by Brett Pierce, General Motors Speeds Research, The New York Times, July 25, 1945. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

2. Article by The Associated Press, GM to start work in june on new research center, The New York Times, May 22, 1949. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

3. Article by Aline B. Louchheim, Now Saarinen The Son, The New York Times, April 26, 1953. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

4. Article by Thomas E. Mullaney, GM’s Expansion is 60% completed, The New York Times,
Jan 9, 1955. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

5. Article, Gen. Motors to Dedicate New Center, Chicago Daily Tribune, Apr 9, 1956. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

6. Article, Architectural Forum , 1956.

7. Article, GM’s Engineering Center, Interiors Magazine, January, 1957.

8. Automotive Intelligence Website: News – June 1999
http://www.autointell.com/news-center/news-center-99/newsJune-99.htm

9. Automotive Intelligence Website: News – September 2000
http://www.autointell.com/news-center/news-center-00/news-September-2000.htm