On a recent visit to Chicago, I was shocked to see that the General Automation, Inc. building (3300 W. Oakton Street at McCormick) was gone. In its place, a generic big box style store selling flooring.
General Automation’s building was one of the north shore’s most distinctive bits of Mid-Century design. It encompassed 75,000 square feet of offices and factory floor for a company that produced precision metal fabrications – machine parts, screws, etc.
Most of the architectural interest was in the curved office section facing Oakton. Concrete piers and panels framed pyramidal windows, in an elaborately framed facade. At the center, a pod-like vestibule welcomed arrivals to the futuristic building. Concrete pattern block screened the lower levels. The major face of the warehouse was lined with concrete panels, decorated with simple fins and a small incised circle on each panel.
According to the successor firm’s website, the General Automation brand began in 1935. A 1958 obituary for an employee (William Starr) lists the company at 900 N. Franklin Street, near what is now the Brown Line tracks downtown. In the 1960s, they moved to 1755 W. Rosehill Drive, in the former industrial corridor along the UP North Metra tracks.
In 1982, the company moved to its newly constructed digs at Oakton and McCormick. Yep, you read that right: the hyper-futuristic 1960s building is actually a 1980s building, at least according to the Life: Skokie Edition newspaper, which noted the company’s pending move in a November 1981 article. No word on the architect, alas, and no independent confirmation that I’ve been able to locate (I find the 1982 date difficult to reconcile with the building’s architectural style.)
In recent years, the company combined with three others to form HN Precision; the consolidated corporation specializes in precision-milled machine parts, serving a variety of industries including rail, oil and gas, automotive and more. Consolidation among the merged companies began in 2011, and the Skokie location closed circa 2012.
The building was sold at the end of 2013, stripped of its architectural exterior, and reclad to bland blend in with its surroundings.
General Automation, Inc. of Illinois should not be confused with an identically named company which, though based in California, also had significant operations in the Chicagoland area. This other General Automation engineered, sold, managed and maintained computer systems, from 1967 through the 1990s, under their own name and the subsidary California GA Corporation, with offices in Des Plaines and Bensenville. As far as I know, they did not have an awesome Brutalist factory building.
Of interest to industrial fans: the vacant lot across Oakton was once a natural gas facility, including three gasometers dating to 1911. They were demolished in the early 1960s; the site is currently undergoing cleanup of remnant contaminants.
A Chicago Sojourn 
You do a blog about Chicago but you don’t live here?
@Luke Breckton: See here – https://achicagosojourn.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/1005/
I have this crazy notion that one day I will run out of potential topics. They seem to be regenerating, hydra-like, as fast as I can knock them out. I blame the 78,000 Chicago photographs in my collection.
Do any photos exist of the old Peoples Gas facility on McCormick and Oakton?
Great article. One correction: that’s a manufactured gas facility, not natural gas. Manufactured gas came from heating coal, not natural gas.
@Debra – did you catch the link in the last paragraph?
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I now work exactly one block from this place. When I was a little girl, my cousins lived off of Oakton and Skokie BLVD so we often came to this area in the early 90s until the early 2000s. Every time we drove home, we passed by this place. I honestly can’t recall ever looking at the building that is now my current place of employment but I remember this building very well because it was on a prominent corner (where we would turn), it was weird and very MCM. except I was a tween so I had no idea what MCM was. Though I knew it was some sort of industrial structure, I would pretend it was a house and I would want badly to live there. Flash forward years and years later my husband and I drove past last winter and we noticed a fence around it like they were about to tear down the building. Hubby made this comment that it would be a shame to lose such an MCM gem. They actually did not tear it down completely. They tore apart the front end and altered it dramatically. I started working at a warehouse a block away about three weeks ago so I now I see the aftermath every morning.
The General Automation building was definitely built in the 1980s – I remember thinking at the time what an unusual design for the times. I also remember the gas storage tanks at Oakton and McCormick. As a child I was always afraid they would blow up. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when they were removed. Great blog – just found it.
I have 40 shares of General Automation, Inc. stock. I assume they are no good any more. Found them in my husband’s papers. Thanks!