Dodge Hamtramck Plant Pressed Steel Building Description and Photos
The Pressed Steel Building Initially housed the heavy presses which stamped out automobile body parts. The first segment was designed by Smith, Hinchman & Grylls and built at a cost of $250,000 in 1914. It ran perpendicular to and connected with the east end of Assembly Building Number 1. The 1914 segment was a four-story reinforced concrete building using the flat-slab framing system and measured 77 feet wide and 640 feet long. In 1919, Dodge made a four-story addition (also by Smith, Hinchman & Grylls) consisting of three segments each 76 feet wide, which taken with the existing structure formed the four sides enclosing a light court measuring 147 feet wide and 247 feet long. The light court is now covered at the second floor level by a steel and glass roof, providing additional storage area inside the building. The exterior dimensions of this enlarged segment were 300 feet by 400 feet, the later where the building connects to the Body Building. In 1944 Albert Kahn Associates designed a three-story addition, with the fifth and sixth floors of reinforced concrete, while the seventh floor was steel-framed. At the time the plant closed in 1980, the Pressed Steel Building was used for body preparation and painting, linked at all levels with the Body Building.
PRESSED STEEL BUILDING, ELEVATIONS AND DETAILS, 1919
PRESSED STEEL BUILDING, ELEVATIONS, 1919
PRESSED STEEL BUILDING, ELEVATIONS AND SECTIONS, 1919
PRESSED STEEL BUILDING, ELEVATIONS AND SECTION, 1924
PRESSED STEEL BUILDING, ADDITION, SEVENTH FLOOR, 1945