SC Johnson Tower

Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation

Screen printed poster for Frank Lloyd Wright: Timeless, an exhibition at the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

1    The SC Johnson Tower was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and completed in 1950.

The Research Tower was added in 1950 to the Administration Building, and provides a vertical counterpoint to its horizontality. It is one of only two existing high-rise buildings by Wright. Cantilevered from a giant stack, the tower's floor slabs spread out like tree branches, providing for vertical segmentation of departments. Elevator and stairway channels run up the reinforced concrete core, which Wright called a tap root. Freed from peripheral supporting elements, the tower is wraped in glass allowing natural light to flood it’s laboratories.

2    The Gordon Strong Automobile Objective was designed in 1925 by Frank Lloyd Wright, despite advanced planning the building was never built.

Located on the summit of Sugarloaf Mountain in Maryland, the building was designed to attract the increasing motoring public of post WWI America. Shaped as a circular ziggurat with concrete automobile ramps spiralling to the top and back down again, it was specifically designed for the automobile. It also hosted a huge domed planetarium in it’s core, an hotel, a roof garden and multiple terrasses to enjoy the impressive views on its surroundings. Wright seemed to have been captivated by the spiral shape as he used it multiple times in future projects including in the famous Guggenheim Museum in New York where he turned the spiral upside down and dedicated it to pedestrians.