General Motors Building - Detroit, Michigan
Posted by: 
GT.US
N 42° 22.144 W 083° 04.557
17T E 329068 N 4692842
General Motors has moved their headquarters, and this building is now called Cadillac Square.
Waymark Code: WM7TNG
Location: Michigan, United States
Date Posted: 12/02/2009
Views: 12
The website at (
visit link) tells us, in part:
"Durant selected a Detroit location for his building far from the city's center. Since space was not a constraint, Kahn did not have to design a tall building for the great office space he envisioned. As a result, the GM Building has four 12-story wings so that each office gains exterior light. Kahn's use of classical inspiration is obvious from looking at the loggias on West Grand. I know of no other business or commercial building that has such an attractive and classical entrance as this one. Please notice the detailed and impressive sculpture about the entrance including the eagles that guard the traditional clock with its Roman numerals. You might think also about Kahn's creativity with regard to fenestration. There are many, many similar windows reminding us that Durant created GM's wealth through the production of vehicles sold to the mass market. But the arches at the ground level and the pillars toward the roof line suggest that Kahn carefully planned his use of windows and fully understood their ascetic effects. Almost all Kahn-designed building maximized the flow of light from outside to inside.
Two aspects of this building impress me. Standing across West Grand from this building, you are struck simultaneously by its size and the message that Durant wanted to convey—GM dominates the vehicle business. The other is the contrast with the headquarters building that the identical architect, Albert Kahn, designed for Henry Ford about eight years earlier. Within 25 minutes you can walk northwest on Woodward and compare the GM building to Ford headquarters in Highland Park. This difference, I suspect, reflects the difference between Will Durant and Henry Ford.
Durant did not suffer from excessive modesty. Perhaps, the Chevrolets introduced him to the arts, designs and sculpture of Paris. Durant claimed that he got the idea of using a bow-tie as the insignia for Chevrolet from wallpaper in a room of his Parisian hotel. Napoleon, who also appreciated architecture, insisted that a large N be sculpted into all building constructed in his reign. Toward the top of the GM Building, you find a D reminding us of the man who founded GM, not Detroit. The GM Building was completed in 1923, the year that Alfred Sloan took over management of the firm and built it into the world's largest. The GM Building is now a public state office building. You can walk in and gaze and the marvelous lobby Kahn designed.
In 1996, GM purchased the Renaissance Center on the Detroit River and began moving their offices there. The State of Michigan took over the GM building, renamed it Cadillac Square, and centralized state offices that had been spread across southeast Michigan. Employment in the Cadillac Square Building may exceed what it was in the GM Building."