S.C. Johnson Administration Building
Frank Lloyd Wright
- Outline
- Along with Ochimizu-so, this building was a turning point in Wright's career. It consists of a low-rise office building (1939) and a high-rise R&D building (1950). The office building was one of the first buildings in the United States to be fully air-conditioned. The office building was one of the earliest buildings in the U.S. to be fully air-conditioned, and its graceful curves were emphasized to such an extent that Wright himself positioned it as a daughter of the Larkin Building (1903), which he had designed earlier. The spacious atrium of the office building is lined with 54 columns reminiscent of lotus leaves, and although there are few windows on the exterior walls, skylights in the gaps between the disks above the columns let in light. In contrast, the R&D building has a window surface composed mostly of glass tubes on the exterior, so that the core, which rises like a tree trunk, and the floor from which it extends, are vaguely visible through the windows, even from the outside.
- Location
- USA
- Journal
- Shinkenchiku 2025:08
- Related Link
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- Special Link
- Matrix of 100 Years of Architecture(The 100th Anniversary of Shinkenchiku)
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- Aesthetics of Function
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- Long-Span ArchitectureAssembled Architecture
- Decade
- 1930s
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