Project Analysis Proposal

Jack E. Boucher

Jeff Dean

Johnson Wax Building, aka, Administrative Building, 1936-1939
14th and Franklin St., Racine, Wisconsin, USA
Frank Lloyd Wright

The Johnson Wax building utilizes a unique and innovative selection of materials. [delight] Windows comprised of several layers of Pyrex glass tubing sealed with rubber gaskets fill the space with natural light while retaining privacy. The rest of the building is made of precast concrete and bricks that were made in over two hundred different shapes and sizes. The building is a fourteen story tall tower with curved corners. [commodity] It was intended for corporate offices and a research laboratory, though the research lab no longer meets required fire safety codes.
One defining feature of the Johnson Wax building is the use of dendriform columns. [firmness] These steel-reinforced concrete columns are nine inches wide at their base and tapir upwards into a “lily pad” top, which spans eighteen feet. Due to the precariousness of this design, Frank Lloyd Wright was required to demonstrate how much weight a single column could carry before he received a building permit. It was determined that the columns could hold up to sixty tons before cracking, forty-eight more tons than was required.
“This building, with its transparency between floors and the activities on them, along with the whole idea of blocking out the outside is said to have a strong influence in the design of casinos.”

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