General Motors Technical Center, dedicated in 1956 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 2014, is an icon of midcentury design and the prototype of the modern American corporate campus. Located in the Detroit suburb of Warren, the complex was the first major project by celebrated Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen (1910 – 1961). Like the Cranbrook campus in nearby Bloomfield Hills, where Eero grew up and started his career working with his father Eliel, GM Technical Center was meticulously planned and crafted as a total work of art.

Eero’s collaborators on the GM project included many of the era’s most celebrated artists and designers including Harry Bertoia, Alexander Calder, Alexander Girard, Maija Grotell, Florence Knoll, Ruth Adler Schnee, and Marianne Strengell.

This day-long reassessment of GM Technical Center’s history and its continued stewardship by General Motors will feature morning talks at Cranbrook Art Museum (10:00am – 12:00pm) and afternoon tours of the Cranbrook campus and Cranbrook Archives with a focus on the work of Eero Saarinen and his GM Technical Center collaborators (12:00pm – 5:00pm).

In addition to the program at Cranbrook, Docomomo-US/Michigan members will have the rare opportunity to tour the GM Technical Center (1:15 – 4:45pm). This special tour, which departs from Cranbrook, will be limited to thirty-five participants, and requires advance registration through Docomomo US/Michigan. You must be a current Docomomo US member to register for the GM tour. (Click here to join or renew).

Featured speakers at Cranbrook include GM archivist Natalie Morath and Cranbrook Center curator Kevin Adkisson, who will address GM Technical Center’s history and connections to Cranbrook, as well as Ronald Rader and Andrew Barton from GM Design, who will talk about the preservation of Calder’s fountain and the original Central Restaurant and its Bertoia screen.

Registration will open in September.

For more information on the talks and tours at Cranbrook, contact Center@cranbrook.edu.

For the GM Technical Center tour, please contact Docomomo.mi@gmail.com to confirm your membership is up to date and to receive a notification when registration opens.