History of the Argonaut Building

Built in 1927 for General Motors by architect Albert Kahn, the premier designer of reinforced concrete manufacturing facilities, especially Detroit’s many automobile factories, the nearly 700,000 square foot, 11 story building was GM’s first research center.

Directly behind GM’s sprawling headquarters on West Grand Boulevard, the General Motors Research Laboratory was home to hundreds of patents on automotive innovations, including the first fully automatic transmission, the Hydra-matic. Alfred P. Sloan was president of GM and the brilliant Charles Kettering was the head of research. Both men were intent on consolidating the many entities that made up GM, aggressively attacking Ford’s Model T market share, and driving innovative technology and design. The latter goals were to be housed in the Argonaut Building research lab.

Sloan’s target of “A car for every purse and purpose” required a family of automobiles that incorporated engineering and aesthetic changes each model year, luring customers to anticipate the next new style. Much of the annual model change distinctiveness fell to Harley Earl, the first modern automobile designer.

Earl’s first GM design was the 1927 LaSalle, a two-toned sculptural vehicle that put significant distance between itself and Ford’s increasingly stodgy Model T. Sloan introduced the Art and Colour Section in 1927 to institutionalize the new aesthetic. Harley Earl was named head and his studios were located in the Argonaut Building. An expansion was added by Kahn in 1936, fully developing the research and design operations in the Argonaut Building until 1956, when those functions were moved to the new Warren Technical Center. Additional GM functions, including photography and global real estate, continued to occupy the building until the headquarters moved to the Renaissance Center building in 1997.

Harley Earl presided over GM’s design team from 1927 until 1959, most of his career spent in the Argonaut Building. All of GM’s key designers, including the flamboyant Bill Mitchell, grew up in the Argonaut design studios. A hub of innovation and design for 30 years, the Argonaut Building’s illustrious history provides a most symbolic and fitting platform upon which to establish a new generation of art and design leadership with the College for Creative Studies.