When Herbert Fisk Johnson, Jr. commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design a new administration building for S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc., he was so delighted with the plan that he commissioned Wright to design his new home. Completed in 1939, Wright called the 14,000-foot creation Wingspread, because its four wings embrace the prairie, while the roof over the central Great Hall soars skyward.
Wingspread’s primary materials – Kasota limestone, red Streator Brick, tinted stucco, and unstained tidewater cypress – anchor the house to the earth, while its many windows and skylights open it to the heavens by admitting air, light and views of the sky and landscape.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s drivers of form and function, site structure, timing, and context guide our approach to crafting an incomparably organic and dynamic meeting environment.
The U.S. Secretary of the Interior designated Wingspread as a National Historic Landmark in 1990.
“The building, as architecture, is born out of the heart of man, permanent consort to the ground, comrade to the trees, true reflection of man in the realm of his own spirit.” — Frank Lloyd Wright
