Wisconsin Life

This home, nestled in the prairies of southeast Wisconsin, was one of Frank Lloyd Wright's favorites. He designed it for Herbert Fisk Johnson Jr., who was known as "Hib." Hib Johnson would enjoy saying that when they started the project he was in charge, and when they ended the project Frank Lloyd Wright was in charge. And that relationship, I think, is very indicative of how this project was designed. It was a collaboration of two iconic Wisconsin men. One, a daring captain of industry with a great love for flight. The other, a 69-year-old architect embarking on a phase of his career that would secure his status as a legend. The result, Wingspread. In the 1920s and early 30s, Frank Lloyd Wright's commissions were sparse. His distinguished architectural career had stalled. Yet his most heralded design work still lay ahead. Frank Lloyd Wright viewed the 1930s as a set of opportunities, where the crash of the stock market was a kind of a wake-up call to America that we needed to think about our culture differently, we needed to think about architecture differently. In 1936 Wright was contacted by Hib Johnson, president of the Johnson Wax Company. Johnsonexpanded the company through the Depression years with bold decisions and clever marketing. He often flew his own airplane to create publicity sensations around the country. Hib Johnson commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design a new headquarters for his company. The outcome was the Johnson Wax Administration Building. It helped shine the spotlight on Wright once again, and it delighted his patron. Johnson told Wright that if he could only sleep at that administrative building, he would be quite happy. And Wright said, "Well, how about we design a house for you?" And Wingspread was the result of that conversation, as the story goes. Wingspread was completed in 1939 in Wind Point, just north of Racine. The house was named for its four wings, as would be seen by Hib Johnson when he flew home from business trips. The 14,000 square foot home was the largest residential project of Wright's career. And it would exemplify his philosophy of organic architecture. Wingspread is not an imposing mansion. It sits low and horizontal on the landscape. Even entering the home feels inviting and cozy. You come in through a very low entrance. There's almost nothing grand about it until you come into this main space, which almost shocks you. This central core encompasses several rooms in one space, an idea Wright refined throughout his career. The Johnson family could use the different areas as they needed. What Wright does is create an enormous space, but he very carefully segregates that space into places that can be enjoyed, a small sitting area for example. That central space, by being divided into a number of different subsectors, provides that sense of intimacy that you would otherwise never have. Moving to the outdoors at Wingspread often happens through large French doors, under generous overhangs, and out onto paved terraces. Organic architecture includes the notion that a home should be in harmony with its environment. The idea in the 20th century was how do you incorporate the natural world with the design of your house? How do you break down that barrier between the inside and the outside? So you break down that distinction by having spaces that are kind of transitional spaces between the inside and outside. You have a patio that opens out into the natural space. And you situate your house in a way that makes it part of the natural environment. Hib Johnson and Frank Lloyd Wright would become friends through the project. But Johnson's role was perhaps larger than the famously autocratic architect was used to. The genesis of Wingspread was unusual for a Wright project. It was the client, Hib Johnson, who came to Wright with a sketch of a house with four wings, a zoned plan that Wright expanded and refined. As Wright later wrote, "I respect hunches of others, that is, should they correspond with mine." One thing Wright and Johnson shared was ambition. They believed in the American dream and that it could be achieved. Wright built this idea into the heart of Wingspread. The fireplace core represents this aspirational quality of the house. The fireplace is the thrust upward to the heavens, and what that does, is it provides that additional sense of movement. You're not just moving around in a circle, but you're also imagining yourself going up. Wright made that movement literal in this stair that goes all the way up to the crow's nest, from which you can see the entire lay of the estate. It has been said that Johnson's two children came up with the idea of the crow's nest. Sam and Karin could get a bird's eye view of their dad as he flew back home. By 1938, building Wingspread was costing more than expected and the work was slow. That year, Johnson's enthusiasm in completingthe home waned due to a personal tragedy. While Wingspread was under construction, Hib Johnson's wife died, and he lost interest in finishing the house. With Wright's encouragement, he did complete the work, and in 1939, moved in with his two children and later remarried. This was Johnson's home for 20 years. In 1961, the Johnson family formally dedicated Wingspread to The Johnson Foundation. It is used by organizations around the world to meet and discuss solutions for environmental and community issues. It's as if Wright thought that was going to happen one day. And to be able to talk to other leaders in the field in a place like Wingspread is, in a way, the perfect expression of the architecture of this building. By the time Wingspread was completed, Wright was in his 70's. The work for Hib Johnson helped Wright build fresh momentum. The next two decades would be the most productive in Wright's long career. Wright's true brilliance as an architect is that he was able to take what was popular stylistically at any point in time and filter it through his ideas of organic architecture, and in the end come up with something that is very much about him as an architect and the way that he saw the world. And I think Wingspread is one of the remarkable buildings that you get to see that in. Wright felt that we could build an American architecture here in the prairies of the Midwest. And I think Wingspread is really a poem to the land that it resides in.