Ford office building looks to the future while honoring the past

WWJ-AM / WWJ Newsradio 950

A century old Detroit building that celebrates a lot of Ford Motor Co. history, is getting a new life following a complete renovation. WWJ Auto Beat Reporter Jeff Gilbert got a look.

Transcript

00:00This beautiful building on Oakwood just north of the Henry Ford Museum carries

00:05with it a lot of history. It's also a big part of Ford's future. The Ford

00:11Engineering Laboratory is a hundred years old and it recently underwent a

00:15full renovation. Here in the building there are conference rooms sitting

00:20inside a large airy atrium restored to a lot of its original look and feel. When

00:27you have a building that's more than a century old you have to be very careful

00:31because you want to make it functional for the future but you want to honor

00:35that history. Our strategy is a delicate touch so we really honor the

00:41architecture in this case is incredible Kahn building and then we delicately

00:46insert the elements that allow it to function today. Let's take a look at some

00:50of that history well preserved here on what they call Mahogany Row. This is

00:56where Edsel Ford once had an office. Next door sat his father Henry. The

01:01furniture is original on loan from the Henry Ford Museum. There was no Ford

01:05headquarters building back in the 20s and 30s so if Henry was working it was

01:10either at the Rouge or here. I think there's no other place at Ford Motor

01:14where employees will feel as connected to Henry Ford as they will here. They

01:20even have the vault where Henry once stored the company's cash. Now this

01:25building also houses Ford's archives with items now on display that highlight

01:30this building which has served various functions. They even had dance lessons

01:35here. You can feel the history. This building definitely has a distinct

01:40personality and feel and I think the renovations that they were able to do

01:45over the past couple years have really helped to highlight a lot of those

01:49features. Ford says it's well on its way to having 90% of its buildings totally

01:56renovated going forward. In Dearborn, I'm AutoBeat reporter Jeff Gilbert.

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