The 'Industrial Versailles' in Warren

Warren, Michigan’s third-largest city, is home to one of the most important pieces of modern architecture in America — and most people just drive past it. The General Motors Technical Center is GM’s giant design-and-engineering campus, and when it opened in 1956 it was hailed as a masterpiece. It was the first big project that the famous architect Eero Saarinen designed on his own — he also designed the St. Louis Gateway Arch — after years working alongside his architect father. Spread over about a square mile, its campus of sleek, low glass-and-steel buildings set around a man-made lake was so striking that magazines nicknamed it “The Industrial Versailles,” and President Eisenhower helped dedicate it with a live television address beamed in from the White House. The Tech Center basically invented the modern “corporate campus” — the park-like headquarters with art and fountains that companies like Apple and Microsoft would copy decades later. Saarinen even had GM fire up a special kiln to make glazed bricks that glow like autumn leaves, and brought in famous artists like Alexander Calder to add sculpture and fountains. It’s still GM’s main design center today, and in 2014 it was named a National Historic Landmark.