• by Tanya Gazdik , December 14, 2025

General Motors' new global headquarters in downtown Detroit will feature a once-lost Harry Bertoia sculpture which connects the automaker to a former Detroit retailer. 

The automaker is moving to the new Hudson's Detroit building, which was built on the site of the longtime and beloved former J.L. Hudson flagship department store.

Bertoia’s connection to General Motors precedes his connection to Hudson's. His first public sculpture installation was commissioned for the General Motors Global Technical Center in Warren, Michigan in 1953. 

In 1970, when Bertoia was an established leader in modernist sculpture, the J.L. Hudson Company commissioned an installation for the Genesee Valley Mall in Flint, Michigan. Bertoia’s creation was monumental in size, yet delicate in appearance: a 26-foot-tall sculpture that takes the form of two large clouds, constructed of steel wire coated in melted brass, bronze, and metal alloys.

In 1980, when the mall was shuttered for renovation, the sculpture was moved to another mall in Southfield, Michigan. There, it vanished from public view for decades; when the Northland Mall was later demolished, it was feared that the Bertoia installation had been lost for good.

Miraculously, in 2017, appraisers from the Southfield Arts Commission discovered the lost Bertoia beneath layers of dirt in the basement of the demolished mall. The City of Southfield then purchased the artwork, and restoration was begun.

Installing the sculpture at the new HQ was a massive undertaking. A five-story-high opening had to be “unzipped” in the side of the Hudson's Detroit building. The sculpture was threaded through the 15-foot-wide, 75-foot-tall opening in two pieces, involving a complex ballet of chain-falls and cranes to safely transport the historic artwork. 

“Having a Harry Bertoia sculpture in our new global headquarters in Hudson’s Detroit is incredibly meaningful,” said Crystal Windham, executive director of industrial design at General Motors, in a release. “Bertoia was a master at shaping metal, a principle that resonates deeply with our work in automotive design. His iconic screen at Cadillac House at Vanderbilt on our Global Technical Center campus is a legendary part of our design heritage. Now, this magnificent piece, with its own story of being lost and found, bridges GM’s past with our future. It serves as a daily inspiration, a powerful symbol of the creativity and resilience that has always defined both General Motors and the city of Detroit.”