Modern mid-century design with history and wonder

Detroit – Outdoors general motorsThe new world headquarters sits between a 12-story building and the city’s first new skyscraper in more than 30 years, and sits two red Chevrolet pickup trucks.

One is a 1963 Chevrolet K20. The other car is the new Silverado EV. Although the truck is part of a temporary holiday display, it’s symbolic of what’s inside the Detroit automaker’s new global office: past and present interwoven.

GM occupies four of the building’s six office floors, filling them with artifacts, design nods and “Easter eggs” tied to the Detroit automaker’s history.

They range from blueprints of GM’s iconic Dome design and early maps of nearby proving grounds to interior wallpaper featuring 300 patented technologies and a decorated wall of cassette tapes featuring songs featuring the automaker’s brands and playful references to executives such as CEO Mary Barra and President Mark Reuss.

“Leaders have been asking us when we’re going to collaborate on designing spaces with Easter eggs and details that represent who we are as GM,” Rebecca Waldmeyer, GM’s industrial design architecture and experience manager, told CNBC during a tour of the new headquarters.

Other surprises include references to related Detroit streets, design influences from GM’s famous design campus in suburban Detroit, and product artwork and sculptures.

Aesthetics aside, GM officials say the new offices support collaboration and are more relevant to how the company expects employees to work in a post-pandemic world. In addition to the executive department, corporate functions such as marketing, legal affairs, and finance will be located there.

“At some level, the headquarters should be a beacon of corporate culture,” said David Massaron, GM’s vice president of infrastructure and corporate citizenship. “If you come here, it will help people understand what we want to be.”

The new headquarters will significantly reduce the square footage of the automaker’s corporate offices. The new building is just four stories tall and about 200,000 square feet from a towering complex called the Renaissance Center on the city’s riverfront.

GM’s new headquarters is, ironically, less than a mile from Rensen, as it is commonly referred to, which has since become a symbol of the city. ford motor built the complex but decided in the 1970s not to make it their headquarters. GM purchased the building in 1996 for its third headquarters, all in the Motor City.

Rensen is Detroit’s fortress, a 5.6 million-square-foot complex with a more than 700-foot central tower surrounded by four 500-foot towers and two smaller adjoining towers.

This complex is notoriously difficult to enter, exit, and navigate. For most of its existence, it was surrounded by a concrete barrier until it was redesigned around the turn of the millennium.

This has long been a physical transformation of GM’s historically siled culture, and Barra has made it a priority to change that during his nearly 11-year tenure as CEO.

“RenCen was designed in a different era. In the pre-COVID era, everyone worked five days a week and everyone was at their desk,” Massaron said. “Especially in a post-pandemic world, we need office space that people want to come to because we have options.”

GM’s roughly 50,000 U.S. salaried employees are currently required to work in the office Tuesday through Thursday, but the rules are more flexible regarding location and remote work.

Most of the company’s new boardrooms on the top floor of the building will be at the disposal of executives, Massaron said. He said GM executives such as Barra and Reuss will be permanently assigned to only four offices.

GM declined to say how many employees are expected to typically work at the new headquarters, saying customer traffic will fluctuate depending on priorities and workflows. The company also declined to disclose financial details of its 15-year lease at the new headquarters.

The complex, known as Hudson’s Detroit, rocket company Chairman and billionaire Dan Gilbert has been buying and renovating properties in Detroit for more than a decade.

In addition to an office area and executive floor facing the atrium, GM plans to open a semi-public space on the building’s ground floor to display products and hold events.

Other amenities include social areas and lounges, food and beverage services, pickleball courts and recreation areas.

GM’s new headquarters, which is still under construction, comes months after Ford named its new 2.1 million-square-foot global headquarters and product design and development center near Dearborn, Michigan.

Ford’s new facility will include offices, design and industrial operations, as well as numerous amenities, including a 160,000-square-foot dining area with eight “kitchen concepts,” multiple courtyards, and other upgrades.

The notable difference in size between GM and Ford’s new headquarters is due to location, number of employees, and the automakers’ portfolio of offices and operations across the region.

For example, GM has a vast technology and design center that occupies 710 acres near Warren, Michigan. Its campuses are home to more than 24,000 employees.

Massaron said GM doesn’t feel the need to create a “city within a city” because the new headquarters is actually a “building within a city.”

Here’s a look inside GM’s new world headquarters.