Porch Notes
Warren's 'Industrial Versailles': the GM Technical Center
History and culture
Michigan’s third-largest city contains one of the most important works of modern architecture in America. The General Motors Technical Center — a mile-square campus of glass, glazed brick, and reflecting pools along Van Dyke — was designed by Eero Saarinen, the architect of the St. Louis Gateway Arch, and opened in 1956 with President Eisenhower delivering the dedication address. Life magazine dubbed the $125 million campus “the Industrial Versailles”: low pavilions in saturated colors arranged around a 22-acre lake, a shimmering stainless water tower, and the famous silver-domed Design Dome where generations of GM cars were first unveiled to executives.
It was named a National Historic Landmark in 2014, and it’s no museum — thousands of designers and engineers still work there shaping GM’s electric future, making it Warren’s economic anchor as well as its architectural crown. Plenty of suburbs are shaped by what got built in them; Warren is shaped by a place where the future itself was the product.
Where to see it
The campus along Van Dyke and Twelve Mile in Warren; the silver Design Dome and Saarinen's glass pavilions are visible from the perimeter.