Brand=Building

Frank Lloyd Wright and American Business

ST U ART G R AF F
PR ESID EN T AN D C EO
F R AN K L L O YD W R IG H T F O U N D ATION
From Branding to Architecture
Intellectual property and marketing attorney
◦ Branding
◦ Innovation
Corporate counsel
◦ Defining/Supporting innovation, branding, and competitive
strategies
◦ Protecting innovation and differentiation
Global business leader
◦ Building business on the basis of strongly differentiated
brands
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation CEO
◦ Crowded FLW space
◦ Brand licensing program

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Frank Lloyd
Wright’s
American
Journey
June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959

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An American Journey
1867: Born Richland Center, Wisconsin
God-Almightly Lloyd-Joneses
Unglaciated “Driftless” landscape
Froebel and nature

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 Study Nature, love Nature, stay
close to Nature. It will never fail you.

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An American Journey
1886: Less than one year of engineering studies at
University of Wisconsin Hon. D.F.A. 1955

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An American Journey
1888-93: Studio of Louis Sullivan, Chicago
Pioneer of Modern Architecture—Form Follows
Function

World’s Columbian Exhibition

Japanese Pavilion and Asian Art

Daniel Burnham’s offer: Ecole des Beaux-Arts

and the American Academy in Rome,
partnership

“An American Architecture” rooted in

democratic values and American
Transcendentalism: Whitman, Emerson,
Thoreau
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An American Journey
1893-1914: Wright opens own Studio
Hires Marion Mahony, one of the first
licensed women architects In America

The Prairie School Years

National Reputation
“Form and function are one”
“The space within”

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An American Journey
1909: Scandal: leaves wife and children, takes
mistress to Europe; Wasmuth portfolio published 1911
1911: Begins building Taliesin, the “shining brow,” an
autobiography in wood and stone
1914: Murders, Fire—end of the Prairie designs

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An American Journey
1914-29: Experimentation and Adventure

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An American Journey
1930’s: Olgivanna Wright
establishes an
apprenticeship program at
Taliesin in Wisconsin

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An American Journey
1939-59: Taliesin West—pure geometry
A Creative Outburst
◦ Florida Southern College
◦ Price Tower
◦ Marin County Civic Center
◦ Kalita Humphreys Theatre
◦ The Guggenheim
◦ Usonian Automatic

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America’s Greatest Architect
70+ year career of bold experimentation
Pioneering use of open floor plans;
new materials; new lighting, heating,
cooling, and other mechanical systems
Structural innovation
36 states, 3 countries, global influence
1100 structures designed, over 500
built, 440 remain, 73 open to the public
today
Inspired by Nature and American
values

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Branding Frank Lloyd Wright
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The Branded Man
I thought if I could to lead an unconventional life

◦ Created a uniquely American architecture, democratic in values,

incorporative by design
◦ Always seeking excellence, quality, beauty—the ordinary would never
do
◦ Unbound by history, yet deeply rooted in it
◦ Limitless innovation
◦ Connected to nature, but also to the world and people around him

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A Differentiated Architecture
◦ “Breaking the Box”

◦ Inside and outside flowed together

◦ Designed to the human scale

◦ ORGANIC ARCHITECTURE

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Creating a Brand

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Creating a Brand

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Creating a Brand

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Creating a Brand

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Creating a Brand

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Creating a Brand

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Creating a Brand

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Creating a Brand

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American System-Built Houses
(1915)
“I would rather solve the small house
problem than build anything else I can
think of”

◦ Standardized prefabricated houses

◦ Over 960 drawings for the project
◦ 30 unit variations

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Expanding the Brand

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Personifying the Brand
”Organic”
American
Architecture
Style
Manner of
speaking and
writing
Quotable
“Honest
Arrogance”
Individualist

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Extending the Brand:
Licensing Wright
Furniture, fabrics, paint, wallpaper, rugs, china, crystal, silver

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Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
◦ VISION: Inspire the world through beautiful spaces that
are thoughtfully designed and experienced

◦ MISSION: Preserving Taliesin and Taliesin West for

future generations, and inspiring society through an
understanding and experience of Frank Lloyd Wright’s
ideas, architecture, and design

◦ PROGRAMS:
◦ Public Access: Tours, Art Exhibitions, Performances, Lectures, Farm
◦ Education: The School of Architecture at Taliesin (M. Arch.); K12 and
Adult Education programs
◦ Preservation: Leadership in the field of values-based preservation to
enable visitors to experience Wright’s legacy themselves
◦ Innovation: Test new materials, structures, techniques in
architecture, construction, and design

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From Building Wright’s Brand to Building
Buildings for Brands
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 Understanding
Business/Businessmen
“American men of business with
unspoiled instincts and ideals”

◦ B. Harley Bradley—Bradley Plow

Works ◦ Edgar Kaufman—Kaufman’s
◦ Darwin D. Martin—Larkin Soap Department Stores
Co. ◦ Avery Coonley—Finance and Seeds
◦ Ward Willits—Adams and Westlake ◦ Herbert F. Johnson—SC Johnson
Foundry Wax
◦ William C. Winslow—Winslow ◦ Harold Price—Oil Industry
Ironworks

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The Larkin
Building
Buffalo, NY 1903

Color renderings by David

Romero from b/w photography 32
Larkin Branding
Larkin Soap Company: marketing
innovation
◦ Not just soap—household staples
◦ Diverse catalog
◦ Direct selling model—Larkin “Secretaries”
◦ Sophisticated premiums
◦ The “Larkin Idea” magazine
◦ Larkin Parties

By the 1920’s, a stylish home would claim

the “Larkin Look”

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“I wish to unite the interests of
employer and employee,
making all work more pleasant
and better paid.”

—John D. Larkin

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From the “Larkin Idea”
to the Larkin Building
Communicating values
and global ambitions to
both employees and the
community at large

HONEST LABOR
NEEDS NO MASTER

SIMPLE JUSTICE
NEEDS NO SLAVES

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Exterior: Seal off filth, noise, smoke

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Interior: transparency, space, light, air
Open air, natural light,
visibility between
management and workers
reflected the company’s
concerns with quality,
hygiene, and democratic
value

Leadership and design

combined to create shared
values among employees,
managers and executives,
and customers

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Innovation as a brand value
◦ Fireproof construction
◦ Magnesite fireproofing/soundproofing
◦ Early air conditioning
◦ Wall-hung toilets
◦ Open floor plan/natural lighting
◦ Pneumatic vacuum cleaning system
◦ Adjustable desks and chairs
◦ Electric intercoms
◦ Purified drinking water

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Organic by Design
Organic architecture represented the synthesis of interior and
exterior, form and function; it joined the built environment and
the lives of those who inhabited it

In the Larkin Administration Building, Wright achieved

the full integration of a building, its surrounding environment,
its management and its workers, in a single, unifying design

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Company liquidated: 1942

Demolished: 1950

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SC Johnson
Headquarters
Racine, Wisconsin

Administration Building 1936-39

Research Tower 1944-50

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A Family Company
Still privately held today, with leadership in the hands of family members, SC Johnson
has referred to itself as a “family” company for nearly a century. Its core values include:

◦ Progressive: profit sharing and a pension

◦ Community: Community fund, precursor to the United Way
◦ Respect for employees and customers: "The goodwill of people is the only enduring thing in
any business."
◦ Innovation: Self-expression and entrepreneurship
◦ Risk-taking: Carrying customers through the Depression

Quality was and is critical, both in products and in design of the working environment

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“Anybody can build a typical building. I
wanted to build the best office building in
the world, and the only way to do that was
to get the greatest architect in the world.”

—Herbert F. Johnson

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A Place Where Work is
Important
Workers and management
connected visibly

Interaction could be
spontaneous and direct

“An enduring symbol of the

company’s creative and
adventurous spirit.”

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Innovation Inspired from Nature

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Stem, Calyx, Petal: Strength

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A Forest of Columns
Supporting a Glass Sky

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Designed to be as inspiring a place to
work in as any cathedral ever was to
worship in
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-Frank Lloyd Wright
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The Research Tower

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Brand Becomes Buildings
◦ Progressive: a streamlined new design for a hopeful
future
◦ Community: a symbol of renewal for a troubled
community
◦ Respect for employees and customers: open floor
plan encouraging interactions between management,
workers, visitors
◦ Innovation: in every detail of the buildings
◦ Risk-taking: 40% of the company’s net worth went into
the Admin building

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Innovation-Inspiring Innovation
ADMINISTRATION BUILDING RESEARCH TOWER SC JOHNSON
◦ Expanded steel mesh to ◦ Tree-form cantilevered
reinforce concrete construction
◦ Improved air circulation ◦ True curtain wall
◦ Use of Pyrex tubing to ◦ Space encouraged
create privacy, unconventional
translucence thinking
◦ Shadowless illumination ◦ Central core for
◦ Sound-absorbing services
materials work with ◦ Silicone rubber
structure to dampen gaskets for glass joints
noise
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“These buildings
continue to
inspire us to
think differently
and work
differently.”

-Fisk Johnson

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Buildings Building Brands
Both the Larkin and Johnson designs communicated the
values of the companies that built them, representing corporate
culture in material form

In his commercial work, Wright created an organic

architecture sympathetic to the relationships and values upon
which his client companies realized their commercial success

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Lessons from
Wright’s Work

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Branding Architecture Today
Architecture remains an important vehicle through which companies communicate their
values: innovation, collaboration, dominance, power

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Wright Principles
Look around: what gifts does Nature offer?
Observation and intention
Build to bless the landscape; be of the land and not merely on the land
Design at the human scale
Enhance organic relationships “The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes.
If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find
◦ Building to land yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished.
◦ Building to people But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all
◦ Building to purpose the days of your life.”

◦ People to people -Frank Lloyd Wright

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THANK YOU ECONOMIC
CLUB OF FLORIDA!

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