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Johnson Wax Headquarters

Johnson Wax Headquarters

Frank Lloyd Wright

Photo: Michael Barera · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Location
Racine, WI
Client / Owner
S. C. Johnson & Son
Year
Completed 1939
Typology
Commercial

Frank Lloyd Wright designed both landmark buildings at the headquarters of S. C. Johnson in Racine, Wisconsin: the Administration Building, completed in 1939, and the 15-story Research Tower, finished in 1950.

The Administration Building is a streamlined design of curved brick and windows made of glass tubes. Its great workroom is a forest of slender concrete columns that widen at the top into broad discs, known as calyxes, and Wright designed the furniture too. The Research Tower rises from a central core, with square floors alternating with round mezzanines, all cantilevered out from the core.

The Research Tower closed in 1982 over safety concerns and reopened in part for tours in 2014. The headquarters received the American Institute of Architects' Twenty-five Year Award.

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