General Motors Research Laboratory

The General Motors Research Laboratory is significant for its association with the automobile industry, specifically General Motors Corporation, and for its association with two famous GM employees. Renowned architect Albert Kahn designed the building for General Motors' use as a research and engineering facility. As the home of GM Research, it was the place where hundreds of patents and products were developed from 1928 to 1956 when it was replaced by the new GM Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. The significant events connected to the General Motors Research Laboratory deal with innovative product developments and marketing that affected broad sections of American culture.

The General Motors Research Laboratory is an eleven-story commercial building clad in brick and limestone and designed by Albert Kahn. The building was constructed in two parts, Building A in 1928 at 421 Second Avenue, and Building B in 1936 at 485 W. Milwaukee. The two parts form an 'L' shape that, along with a 1963 parking structure, take up an entire city block. Building A has eight structural bays on both the Milwaukee and Second Avenue facades. Building B has seven bays on Milwaukee, and is four bays deep. The inside corner of the 'L' is an open courtyard that provides access to loading docks and the 1963 parking garage that wraps around the south and east facades of Building B. Both parts of the building are of the same red-brown brick with limestone, brick, and cast iron ornament. A gray granite plinth wraps the north and west sides up to the middle of the first floor level. This is topped with alternating bands of brick and limestone up to the middle of the third floor. The banding is repeated at the eleventh floor and parapet.