Johnson Wax Building

Primary Creator
Architect: Wright, Frank Lloyd
Contributor(s)
Properties
Area28600
Era1900 - 1950
Height1560
Length2640
StyleOrganic
Volume800000
Width1560
Name of Work Johnson Wax Building
Production Date 1939
Production Location


Current Location


Media Types brick, glass tubes, reinforced concrete
General Notes Known as the Office building and Research Tower for S.C. Johnson Wax & Son Co.
The style is Modern, complex, geometric, integrated, romantic architecture, that is to say -- Organic architecture.
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Description

A low slung brick structure consisting of brick bearing walls and tapered concrete columns that are "mushroom-like", in that they taper upward slightly and then fan out to an enormous capitals - the mushroom cap.  These columns are used all throughout the structure especially in the great space of the building -- the main offices, which are formed from dozens of these slender columns that fan out at the top and create a "forest" of concrete columns.  While the use of materials, especially the glass tubes for glazing throughout the building, is special (and had substantial practical problems), and is integral to the tour-de-force that this design represents in the history of architecture -- the central cause of this building's greatness is the space of the main administrative offices.
 

Theme

To Work should be a condition of grandeur and joy.<br>

Emotional Sum or Sense-of-life

Day to day life can be exalted and pleasurable.<br>

Context Information

Tags

Midwestern American architecture, organic architecture