The Johnson Wax Headquarters is the corporate headquarters of the household goods company S. C. Johnson & Son in Racine, Wisconsin, United States. The original headquarters includes two buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright: the Administration Building, completed in April 1939, and the Research Tower, completed in November 1950. The headquarters also includes the Golden Rondelle Theater, relocated from the 1964 New York World's Fair, in addition to Fortaleza Hall and the Commons, a memorial to Samuel Curtis Johnson Jr. Both of the original buildings were widely discussed on their completion, and they have been depicted in several exhibits and media works. In addition, the original headquarters received the American Institute of Architects' Twenty-five Year Award and has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.

S. C. Johnson's chief executive, Herbert Fisk "Hibbert" Johnson Jr., hired Wright to design the Administration Building in 1936 after rejecting an earlier plan by J. Mandor Matson. Construction began that September, though work progressed slowly due to Wright's attention to detail and use of novel construction methods. The Administration Building was well-received upon its opening, undergoing minor modifications over the years. S. C. Johnson rehired Wright in 1945 to design the Research Tower, construction of which began in late 1947. After the Research Tower opened, S. C. Johnson used the structure for research and development (R&D). The Golden Rondelle Theater opened in 1967 as a visitor center for the headquarters. The Research Tower was closed in 1982 due to safety concerns. The Fortaleza Hall was finished in 2010, and the Research Tower partially opened for tours in 2014.

The Johnson Administration Building is designed in a variation of the streamlined Art Moderne style, with a curved brick facade and Pyrex glass-tube windows. The Administration Building's primary interior space is a great workroom with concrete shell columns topped by large "calyxes". The Administration Building also includes offices on a mezzanine and penthouse, in addition to an overpass connecting with a carport; these spaces contain furniture designed by Wright. The Research Tower, a 15-story structure with a brick facade and Pyrex-tube windows, is next to the Administration Building and is surrounded by a courtyard. The tower has alternating square floors and circular mezzanines, cantilevered outward from the structural core.

Site

The Johnson Wax Headquarters is located at 1525 Howe Street in Racine, Wisconsin, United States. The original headquarters comprises two structures, the Administration Building and Research Tower. These occupy a city block bounded by 16th Street to the south, Howe Street to the west, 15th Street to the north, and Franklin Street to the east. The Administration Building occupies a square site measuring on each side. The Research Tower is immediately to the north of the Administration Building, connected to it by a footbridge.

thumb|The Johnson Wax Headquarters' Research Tower (left) and Administration Building (bottom). The globe is in the foreground, in front of both buildings.|alt=Refer to caption

Just north of the original Johnson Wax Headquarters campus is the Golden Rondelle Theater, near the intersection of 14th and Franklin streets. Designed by Lippincott & Margulies as a 1964 New York World's Fair pavilion, the theater has a saucer-shaped, gold-colored roof supported by six concrete columns. The modern theater has 308 seats Flanking the theater are two brick structures with glass-tube windows, designed by Taliesin Associated Architects; one is a lobby and display area, while the other structure is an exit.

Immediately to the east of the Golden Rondelle Theater, and northeast of the original headquarters, is Fortaleza Hall, which opened in 2010 and was designed by Foster + Partners. The structure was built as a memorial to Samuel Curtis Johnson Jr. the president of the household goods company S. C. Johnson. Its name refers to Samuel Johnson's 1998 trip to Fortaleza, Brazil, which replicated a journey that his father Herbert Fisk "Hibbert" Johnson Jr. had made in 1935. Fortaleza Hall consists of a spherical atrium with a disc-shaped roof. Inside is a replica of the Sikorsky S-38 plane that Hibbert had flown, a cafeteria, a waterfall, a precast concrete wall with forest motifs, a green wall, and a reading room. Next to it is Waxbird Commons, an office building that opened in 2021; named after S. C. Johnson's Waxbird airplane, it includes green energy features such as a solar roof and geothermal heating.

The campus also includes a plastic globe, the first version of which was built in 1954. The globe contained plastic markers denoting the locations of S. C. Johnson's offices and distributors around the world. According to the Racine Journal Times, the globe was the largest of its kind in the world when it was built, with a circumference of .

Development

S. C. Johnson & Son was founded in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1886 and expanded rapidly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By 1936, some of the company's executives worked in a wooden house and a series of annexes next to the company's existing factory and warehouse. Hibbert Johnson initially wanted to expand the existing buildings before deciding on an entirely new campus. Samuel Johnson later reflected that his father "was tired of us being seen as a little old family enterprise in a little town in the Midwest".

Original building

Design

Before starting his new building, Hibbert visited The Hershey Company's headquarters in Hershey, Pennsylvania, for inspiration. Upon his return to Racine, Hibbert hired J. Mandor Matson to design an office building near S. C. Johnson's existing headquarters. The initial drawings had few windows, if at all, and a revised blueprint from 1936 included windows. Ramsey and S. C. Johnson's advertising manager, William Connolly, were also unable to suggest suitable revisions. Jones visited Wright's Taliesin studio in Spring Green, Wisconsin, twice in July 1936 to discuss the proposed building, whereupon Wright characterized Matson's design as a crematorium. That month, Hibbert went to Taliesin to talk with the architect. Despite their personal disagreements, Hibbert asked Wright to design a headquarters for S. C. Johnson & Son in Racine, The architect offered to design a building costing $200,000 (much less than what Matson was asking),

Wright promised that "the Johnson Administration Building is not going to be what you expect", Wright replaced Matson as the architect in late July 1936, less than a month before construction was supposed to begin; Hibbert's daughter Karen reported being elated that her father had decided to hire Wright. Shortly afterward, Wright visited the site that S. C. Johnson had acquired in Racine. At the time, the site had a series of wood-frame houses, a few small stores, and a cinema. Wright's plans for the Johnson Administration Building were based on his earlier, unbuilt design for the Capital Journal offices in Salem, Oregon, which included a series of mushroom–shaped columns and translucent walls.

Wright tried to convince the company to relocate to the Racine suburbs, Ramsey and Connolly were vehemently against the idea, but Wright continued to promote it until his wife Olgivanna warned that S. C. Johnson might fire him, too. Two of Wright's apprentices, John Howe and William Wesley Peters, recalled that Wright rushed to draw his ideas but that he also focused on perfecting the building's geometry, particularly the grids of columns. Wright allocated space to each of S. C. Johnson's departments based on what each department needed. On August 9, 1936, ten days after he was hired, Wright went to Racine to show the plans to Hibbert and other S. C. Johnson officials. Hibbert requested two changes to the plans, although he retained Wright's draft plan for the most part. By the end of the month, Wright asked three apprentices to create a model of the building.

Initial work and delays

Hibbert Johnson suggested that his good friend Ben Wiltscheck be hired as the building's general contractor. Wright, who was typically adversarial toward contractors, saw Wiltscheck as "good help for us in getting this building properly built". and Peters and Mendel Glickman finalized the building's structural details. Apprentices at Taliesin created 18 to 20 drawings, many of which depicted the building's great workroom, a relatively simple space. Concurrently, Wright's apprentice Robert Mosher had been overseeing the construction of Fallingwater, Edgar J. Kaufmann's country estate in Pennsylvania, when Wright forced Mosher to return to Wisconsin after a dispute involving reinforcing steel. Mosher was instead appointed to oversee the construction of the S. C. Johnson Administration Building, while another apprentice, Edgar Tafel, took Mosher's place in Pennsylvania.

Wiltscheck and Mosher worked out of a nearby shack. The Wisconsin Industrial Commission refused to approve plans for various aspects of the building, citing building-code violations, but ultimately approved most of these plans with few changes. in particular, inspectors felt that the columns were too thin to support the loads that had been indicated in Glickman's drawings. In the meantime, work continued. By the end of the year, the building's estimated cost had increased to $300,000. Wright, who had designed just two buildings in the previous half-decade, had severely underestimated the materials and labor expenses. Mosher returned to Pennsylvania in January 1937 to supervise Fallingwater, and Tafel was appointed as the Johnson Administration Building's supervisor. Tafel lived in a former bar across from the Administration Building's site, playing an organ as entertainment. The same month, S. C. Johnson bought a parcel immediately northwest of the Administration Building, as Ramsey wanted to construct a truck-repair garage there. Not all of Wright's proposals for the building were implemented; for example, Hibbert rejected a proposed pipe organ in the great workroom. In several instances, Wright finalized plans for certain parts of the building as they were being constructed. He spent one year adjusting the details of glass tubes that were to be installed on the facade. Meanwhile, state officials refused to approve the columns because they were not of sufficient thickness. The concrete for the column was poured in late May, and Wright began testing the column that June. at which point Wright ordered workers to pull down the column. and by that August, some of the walls had been finished. Work had to be halted in late October 1937 after Wright, with little warning, revised plans for the squash court and the cafeteria–theater space. During early 1938, Wright refined his plans for the interiors while at Taliesin West, his studio in Arizona. After Corning Glass began delivering Pyrex glass tubes for the building's facade, disagreements emerged over who should install the glass tubes. Progress was further delayed by labor strikes during early 1938; for example, laborers called a strike to demand higher wages, and material deliveries were delayed when truckers went on strike. Although Wiltscheck and Wright's apprentices all raised concerns about the use of Pyrex tubes for the skylights, which they claimed would leak, Wright refused to consider alternative materials. Hibbert secretly ordered standard glass skylights anyway; Tafel told Wright about this change, and Hibbert fired Tafel in retaliation. Hibbert eventually agreed to rehire Tafel and use Pyrex skylights after Wright threatened to resign over this dispute.

The iron pipes in the floors were installed in April 1938, followed by the pouring of concrete floor slabs during June and July. Peters recalled that, just before the second floor was ready to be poured, he had to reinforce some of the first-floor columns after discovering that Wright had made a last-minute change to the placement of the second-floor columns. Olgivanna Wright recalled that her husband had become increasingly agitated because contractors and laborers requested constant clarifications on various aspects of the project. S. C. Johnson's board of directors, who were also displeased at the slow pace of construction, stopped paying Wright and Wiltscheck. Wright postponed a trip to England so he could oversee the building's construction. By that December, Wright was again ill with pneumonia, and the opening of the building had been postponed to early the next year. Having completed the Administration Building, Hibbert asked Wright to design the Wingspread mansion outside of Racine, which was also completed in 1939. The building had exceeded its original budget considerably;