The Journal Times Online - Racine, Wisconsin

Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer spoke at the opening of the exhibition.

One of the exhibition’s major sponsors is SC Johnson. Greg Anderegg, Johnson's Director of Community Leadership says, “Our own long history with Frank Lloyd Wright and the buildings he built for the company and the Johnson family made it natural for us to be involved.”

Wright designed homes to be part of the setting they were in, rather than merely placing them on a given site. He opened up his homes to their surroundings. He also oriented them to use natural light to its greatest advantage.

“I think if he were alive today, people would call it sustainable architecture,” says Anderegg. “He used natural materials, often from the surrounding area, so I think that’s just kind of sustainability. SCJ has been committed to the idea of sustainability for longer than the word sustainability has been around. We have a long history of doing what is right by the environment and continue that commitment today in our business practices. So it’s only natural that we would connect with an architect like Mr. Wright and his principles of organic architecture.”

Anderegg also says that the architect’s work and the company’s business philosophy overlap, “Frank Lloyd Wright is known for many buildings, and he was the designer of the home. We are a company that makes products for the home. He was trying to find a way to make home life more harmonious and better, and we are a company that makes products that makes homes better, so we think there is a connection there.”

Wright’s first commission from Johnson was the landmark SC Johnson Administration Building (1936).

The Great Workroom is the focal point of the Administration Building.

Other commissions (there would be nine Johnson-related commissions, not all built) included Wingspread (1937) and the SC Johnson Research Tower (1943). The Administration Building is a prominent part of the exhibition. Two striking models are exhibited, as well as a mural-size photo of the building’s Great Workroom, and Wright-designed furniture from the building.

One of the models is a scale replica of the Great Workroom as it appeared when the Administration Building opened in 1939.

The model has not been exhibited since the mid-1980s, when it was commissioned for “Creating the Corporate Cathedral,” an exhibition celebrating the company’s Wright buildings which toured museums across the country to help mark Johnson’s 100th anniversary.

The other, an exterior model of the Administration Building and the Research Tower, was donated to the company after the Guggenheim Museum’s Wright exhibitions in 2009.

It is lit from within, highlighting the miles of Pryex-glass tube windows which are signature features of both buildings (47 miles in the office building, 17.5 miles in the Tower). “It gives us a wonderful chance to show off the exterior of the buildings to people who might not have a chance to see them first-hand,” says Anderegg.

The genesis of the current exhibition was the centennial celebration of Taliesin, Wright’s home in Spring Green. The exhibition continues through May 15. The show generated one of the highest attendance opening weekends at the Milwaukee Art Museum in recent years, Anderegg adds, “This is a great testament to the continuing relevance of Frank Lloyd Wright, and public fascination with him and his work and his life.”

The exhibition, which includes 33 of Wright’s drawings which have never been publicly displayed, will travel to the Phoenix Art Museum in 2012.

Mark Hertzberg, The Journal Times Director of Photography, is the author and photographer of three books about Frank Lloyd Wright’s work in Racine. He will deliver an illustrated lecture at the museum Saturday March 12.

Below is a selection of photos of Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer at the members' preview of the exhibition, Thursday February 11:

Pfeiffer and OsKar Munoz, of the Wright archives, walk through the hallway of the Quadracci Pavilion at the Milwaukee Art Museum. The addition to the Eero Saarinen-designed building was designed by Santiago Calatrava. It opened 10 years ago.

Architect Floyd Hamblen Caroline Hamblen greet Pfeiffer.

Keiran Murphy, left, with OsKar Munoz and Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer.