Check out these 7 unusual ad agency offices

An agency operates out of a church that’s still partially in practice. Another works from the space where the first episode of the long-running animated comedy series “South Park” was created, and a third is located in what was once a casket warehouse.

GERTRUDE resides in what was once a warehouse and pallet factory which made and repaired the platforms used to store and transport containers and other large items in manufacturing. The office is located in a building called The BRNDHAUS PL-ZEN a 25000-square-foot property in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood which borders the city’s lower west side and the Chicago River. About 15 to 20 of the agency’s 40 to 50 global employees work out of the office every day according to Otis D. Gibson founder and chief creative officer of GERTRUDE which handles brand development innovation and strategy.

Gibson bought the space in 2018 and then undertook a two-year development designed by himself and Heather Knapp the agency’s president. They created what is now an “open innovation gallery that showcases the agency’s work and striking visual identity while highlighting the building’s authentic atmosphere exposed brick walls original iron bow truss and 17-foot ceilings and surface-mounted mechanics” Gibson said.

He said that before GERTRUDE moved in the warehouse was vacant for 20 years. The agency which was founded in 2005 in an apartment moved several times in Chicago before settling on its current home. The shop moved to the Pilsen neighborhood in 2013 in a different building originally and a longtime local business owner and resident ended up showing Gibson the current property. It wasn’t officially listed and was more square footage than GERTRUDE was originally looking for but in the end it “had the right foundation to build the agency’s dream” Gibson said.

The inside is not the only attraction. GERTRUDE redesigned an outdoor lot which it calls “Tokio 21 Garden” into a “landscaped green space” that serves as “a sanctuary space amid a bustling business and city” Gibson said.

Another fun fact: the office officially opened on April 1 2019 which was the 100th anniversary of the founding of The Bauhaus an influential German art and design school that operated from that date in 1919 until its closure in 1933. “That heavily inspired both the name and design of The BRNDHAUS PL-ZEN” Gibson said.

Written by Lindsay Rittenhouse. Read the full feature at AdAge