Inside General Motors’ brand-new headquarters in a former downtown Detroit department store

General Motors has opened a new headquarters in downtown Detroit.

Instead of building something new, the automaker moved into a former department store in the city where it was founded more than a century ago.

GM now occupies the top four floors of the building, but the shift is noticeable as soon as you walk in.

From the entrance onward, the space is designed to explain who GM is, where it’s been, and how it wants to present itself now.

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What General Motors built inside its new downtown Detroit headquarters

GM doesn’t wait until you reach an office floor to make its point. 

The ground level is Entrance One – a public-facing vehicle display that turns the front door into a brand statement. 

It feels closer to an exhibit than a lobby, and that’s intentional.

The interiors borrow heavily from the design language established by Eero Saarinen at GM’s Global Technical Center. 

Clean lines dominate, softened by curves, warm lighting, metallic finishes, and wood-paneled walls. 

It’s modern, but deliberately warm.

Design history is everywhere. 

Concept cars and iconic vehicles are integrated throughout the building, while fabrics and materials reference past and present GM interiors. 

Even the library pulls cues from the Corvette CX concept and a 1956 Cadillac seating fabric.

The visual anchor is a large sculpture by Harry Bertoia, now installed in the atrium.

The piece was commissioned in 1970 for a Michigan mall, moved, lost during redevelopment, then rediscovered in 2017. 

Getting it into the building required a five-story vertical opening and a crane-and-chain lift.

Patent walls line the space with more than 49,000 GM patents dating back to 1911. 

And elsewhere, sound-wave art uses engine and EV tones, and the McCormick Speed Form – a full-scale aerodynamic model – sits on the 11th floor. 

Even the meeting rooms carry meaning, named after roads tied to GM’s past, including Woodward.

Why did GM choose a former department store?

A department store puts GM at street level, in the middle of downtown Detroit, rather than behind gates on a closed campus.

These buildings were designed to be open and accessible, and GM leaned into that by making the entry public-facing instead of sealed off. 

It turns the headquarters into something people can actually engage with.

Reusing a retail space also ties General Motors’ future to Detroit’s commercial past. 

Instead of starting fresh, the company worked within an existing shell and filled it with design, history, and intent.

It’s still an office. 

But it’s one that remembers how to let the city in.

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