Post on 25-Mar-2016
description
Frank Lloyd Wright's AD German Warehouse
Building History & Condition Report
Mariah Marshall
ContentsBuilding History.....................................................2
Structure & Condition..........................................15
Notes........................................................................30
Bibliography............................................................34
Appendix.................................................................36
1The small town of Richland Center, Wisconsin is the
unlikely home to a building that represents a significant shift in
the career of one of the most recognizable names in architec-
ture: Frank Lloyd Wright. In this building he brought influences
from early twentieth century architectural movements, his search
for an “American iconography,” Mayan architecture and new
technologies in concrete slab construction. The results were
the A.D. German Warehouse. Finished, incomplete, in 1921
the warehouse has a storied 90 year history of starts and stops
in construction, a long string of owners and a lack of direction.
The warehouse is located on the edge of Richland Center’s
business district and is strikingly different than any other
building in the town and most other cold-storage warehouses
in general. Weathering of the exterior materials is a visual
reminder of the fact that this building is 90 years old. Since
the warehouse is not a building type or style that is normally
associated with Wrights body of work it begs the question: how
and why is this building standing where it is? Wright’s Prairie
Style homes fostered his rise to notoriety in the early twentieth
century. Although regionally successful with his prairie style,
Wright desired more complex projects on grander scales than he
had been working with thus far.1 Wright consciously pursued
a change in direction for his career by traveling to Europe in
1909.2 After his return in 1910 he began to synthesize many
previous influences into a type of architecture that is strikingly
different from his earlier work. The construction of the A.D.
German Warehouse serves as one of the first attempts Frank
2Lloyd Wright made at combining the ideas he had become
famous for with influences he had not fully explored until
this period in his life.
The AD German Warehouse was built in a time
when Richland Center was still flush with money from an
economic boom that had begun in the 1880s. The town
was settled by Orrin & Ira Haseltine in 1849 along the Pine
River valley oriented in a north south.3 Richland Center has
a long tradition as a retail center that supports a surrounding
agricultural community. At this point in time wholesalers
were the main suppliers of goods to the surrounding
community of farmers. Albert Dell German was one of
seven wholesalers operating in the town at the time and
sold goods such as cheese, fruits, tobacco, lumber, produce,
livestock, poultry, eggs and feed.4 Richland Center not
suppored a surrounding community of about 17,000 people,
but it also was the governmental center. In 1852 the town
became the county seat and the courthouse that stands
today was built in 1889. The railroad came to Richland
Center at the prompting of another local business giant,
the Kroskoups, and helped foster an economic boom that
began at the 1880s. The town also had all the trappings of a
growing city, a public school system, teaching college, active
civic groups, suffrage organizations, health services, and a
city hall by 1911. 5
At the time the warehouse was constructed several
other large scale buildings were being built to fulfill the
3needs of local business owners. Most of these buildings
were of a similar style and were predominantly of brick
veneer and load bearing steel construction. Many examples
of the mercantile style buildings that dominate the
downtown area still exist today and have been restored.
Many of the marchantile buldings have had their storefronts
restored along the main downtown street. Some exemplary
structures are the Toms Funeral building Klining & Banker
Plumbing and the Prouty Block all finished in the early
1920s. One that stands out amongst the rest besides the
warehouse is the Edwards Block at 101 South Church, just
two blocks from the warehouse. Constructed by Judvine
Construction, the same builders of the AD German
Warehouse, this building was finished in 1913 and exhibits
a general prairie school influence different than the other
commectial buildings in town.6 These buildings all exhibit
the typical plain brick exterior that characterized commer-
cial buildings in early twentieth century Richland Center.
1917 marked the beginning of construction for the German
Warehouse and the beginning of a commercial building that
would stand in stark contrast to the rest of the town.
The commission for the warehouse came about
through a series of unpaid debts racked up by Wright.
Albert Dell German often sold goods to Wright and his
apprentices while they lived at Taliesin in Spring Green, a
little over twenty five miles southeast of Richland Center.7
Due to the unreliable nature of Wright’s income at the time
Richland County Courthouse
A.A. Bulard Building built 1883
Edwards Block Building
4he was often unable to pay German in full. This brought
about the commission for the warehouse as a way to pay
back German, and for German to fulfill a need to expand
his own business with a larger building. A 1916 article from
local paper the Richland Democrat describes the original plan
for the warehouse to include a “small teahouse restaurant,
specialized retail shops, a wholesale outlet store and a gallery
for local and regional artists, as well as space for Wright
exhibits.”8 Although this reciprocal plan between Wright
and German appeared to be a good deal for all parties
involved, German suffered from a string of bad luck with
his business and the construction costs, originally estimated
at $30,000 sky rocketed to $125, 000.9
Albert Dell German & His Wife
Richland Center is approximately 30 miles from Taliesin
5
�
The exorbitant final construction costs were not the
only misfortune to plague Mr. German. One of the first
major flaws in the planning of the warehouse came when
German failed to make sure a fork in the railroad line would
approach the side of the warehouse. His competitor A.H.
Kroskoup, who went on to become a prominent historical
figure in the history of Richland Center, built his house
in the precise location where the railroad line would have
approached the warehouse. German also suffered from
events on a global scale far out of his control. World War I
brought about rationing of dry goods and coal, that German
would have sold, were suddenly unavailable for him to
sell. The train line even stopped serving the entire town at
one point in 1918 because fuel was needed for the military
and trains were needed to transport troops. Ultimately
skyrocketing construction costs combined with German’s
declining business revenues ended construction. Although
incomplete, and lacking easy access to the railroad, the
state in which the warehouse was completed functioned
adequately for German while he was still in business with
the first three floors housing dry goods and the fourth
housing. His original thoughts of a teahouse, restaurant
and shops never materialized during the original round of
construction. German’s luck seemed to turn around in the
late 1920s before the advent of the Great Depression and
he took another chance at fulfilling his original plans for the
Warehouse under construction, around 1917
6warehouse.
Commercial commissions were rare for Wright
before 1910 as up until this time he had built his reputation
on his residences like the Robie House in Chicago. The
Larkin building, begun in 1903, was one of Wright’s first
commercial commissions and is an early example of how
Wright treated commercial space. The light court in the
center of the building provides natural light for the workers
and an air-intake system to drastically improve the quality of
life for workers.11 In 1909 he broke with domesticity, both
in his work and his personal life, by leaving Chicago and his
first wife and children to travel through Europe with Mamah
Cheney till 1910. While in Europe Wright oversaw the first
ever publication of his work, The Wasmuth Portfolio and
came in contact with many of the most famous buildings
of the western world for the first time in his life. Although
Wright visited Vienna after the height of the secession
movement, the city was still very much a thriving cultural
center in many regards.12 He greatly admired the work
of Otto Wagner and met with students of his and Josef
Hoffman’s during his time in Vienna. Because of this he
certainly would have visited buildings like Joseph Olbrich’s
Secession Building which exhibits many architectural details
derived from ancient civilizations.13 The secessionists’ ideas
on looking to the history of non-western civilizations for
form and views on designing environments as total works of
art are often cited as having an impact on Wright’s career.
Central Court of Larkin Building: Image: USC Department of Architecture
7Whether they truly influenced him or not Wright
would never admit.14 At the very least, Wright was exposed
to, and interested in these ideas. Even before his trip to
Europe Wright would have had access to images of Mayan
architecture simply by living in Chicago. Anthony Alofsin
wrote that “He tried to define a specifically American
iconography by searching for universal sources. This
approach includes using and transforming the motifs of
primary forms found in many other cultures.” Other
scholars on Wright have written that he could have easily
been reading things like John L. Stephen’s Incidents of
Travel in Central America, Chiapas & Yucatan with illustra-
tions by Frederick Catherwood.
These books depicted images from their travels in
the 1840s in Southern Mexico and Guatemala. Casts of
Mayan buildings were also present at the Chicago Colombian
Exposition of 1893. Striking photographs by Teobert Maler
were being published at the time as and the Chicago Field
Museum had exhibits on pre-Columbian culture at the time
that Wright lived in Chicago. In any event it would have
been easy for Wright to have discovered these sources of
influence simply by paying attention to popular exhibits and
publications of his day.15 Conclusions and comparisons
can be made from the buildings that followed his trip about
how he may have been playing with forms from non-western
cultures and architecture as total works of art, or gesamt-
kunstwerk. Many critics consider this time following his trip
8to Europe to be of little consequence and that from 1910
onward his work had less value to society than it had previ-
ously.16 However, to ignore the period of Wright’s life from
1909 till his death would be to ignore an incredibly inter-
esting shift in his career as well as a considerable amount of
projects including the warehouse.
The warehouse is described by architectural historian
Anthony Alofsin as a “… development of primary forms
within the context of his established design methods and
his use of a universal symbolic language”.17 In other
words Wright was attempting to synthesize the various influ-
ences he had at this point in his life into something that he
believed to be truly reflective of American architecture. He
was also looking to the roots of other cultures to inform his
designs. However unlike many others he was not looking
to Roman or Greek or Medieval European architecture;
instead he looked to the cultures that actually occupied the
American continent. For Wright, Pre-Columbian Mayan
architecture such as the pyramids at Chichén Itzá in the
Yucatan Peninsula, Palenque in Chiapas and the intricate
friezes of Mitla, Oaxaca, were “greater elemental architec-
ture than anything remaining on record anywhere else.”18
The structure most often cited as a direct influence
over the design of the warehouse is the Temple of three
lintels at Chichén Itzá in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. For
the warehouse, and quite out of the cultural context for the
town in which it sits, he uses what he had been exposed
Mayan Ruins - Photos by Teobert Mahler
Frieze at Ruins of Mitla, Oaxaca, Mexico
Temple of Three Lintels, Chichen Itza,
Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico
9to in Europe in regards to ornament. The Viennese
Secessionists were searching for a new way to express form
in a meaningful and “pure” way, and for them this meant
looking beyond the western world and into Egypt, Japan, the
Middle East and Pre-Columbian cultures. The A.D. German
Warehouse is Wright’s reinterpretation of monumental
Mayan architecture built in brick and concrete.
When German’s business rebounded he was able to
commission Wright to design a reuse plan for the warehouse
in 1934. Around ninety sheets still exist of drawings that
depict a German’s original programmatic desire and a shift
from warehouse space to offices, apartments, a restaurant
and shop.19 However, these plans were never to be realized.
Shortly after these drawings were completed German’s
business took its final blow when he lost the building after
failure to pay back taxes.20 After losing his business and
building, German left Richland Center for Florida and finally
Maryland where he passed away in 1945.21 Between 1945
and 1960 the warehouse went through a series of owners
and uses. Local business owners rented space to store
goods, even Wright used the warehouse to store freight
at times. Some of the more unique uses include a fallout
shelter in the wake of World War II and the Korean War
and a rifle range in the basement. The most recent chapter
of the Warehouse began in 1969 when Chicago architect
Robert Blust moved to Richland Center and purchased the
warehouse.22
10Robert Blust was the first to treat the building as
a historic landmark after buying it in 1969. He took an
important step in raising awareness of the warehouse by
working for its addition to the National Register of Historic
Places. Not only was the public being reintroduced to
the warehouse but they were also donating their money
to support it. The Johnson Wax Company gave $11,000
to secure an area in the warehouse to serve as a museum
focused on Wright and $9000, along with free labor from a
local carpenter, constructed a 45 seat theater on the north
side of the building. Local enthusiasm for and engagement
with the warehouse was at an all time high.
Local historian Margaret Scott describes in great
length and detail community events held on the roof terrace,
and an increase in tours through the building. Unfortunately,
like most events in the life of the warehouse, the success
was short lived. In 1978 the Wisconsin State Historical
Society allocated $27,898 for the restoration, stabilization
and modernization of systems for the warehouse. The
caveat which ultimately ended work on the warehouse again
was that matching funds had to be raised before the money
could be released. The money was never raised and the
warehouse fell back into uncertain territory.23
In 1980 the building was purchased by Harvey
Glanzer and Beth Caulkins. The two still own the building.
Prior to owning the warehouse Glanzer owned the Malcolm
Willey House in Minneapolis and was not a stranger to the
11work of Wright. Beth Caulkins was also working and living
in Minneapolis at the time that they bought the warehouse.
She was the owner of two gift shops, one on the east bank
and one on the west bank near the University of Minnesota
campus. Glanzer and Caulkins took over the operations
of the building in 1980 and re-opened it to visitors while
Caulkins operated a gift shop on the main floor.24 Not
unlike German himself, Glanzer also commissioned a reuse
plan for the building, this time by a former apprentice of
Wright’s, named John Howe. The two became acquainted
when Mr.. Howe showed up at the Willey House that
Glanzer had just recently purchased. He explained that, “he
came with the house” and the two began a working rela-
tionship that developed, like Wright and German’s, in more
plans for the warehouse.25
Until his death, Howe was an architect in Burnsville,
Minnesota and began his career as an apprentice with Wright
at Taliesin. Based upon archived correspondence Howe
remembers “Mr. German well; he frequently visited the
office at Taliesin in the 1930s.”26 He also was involved with
developing the working drawings for the never completed
1930s renovation. As a part of the renovation for Glanzer
Howe developed drawings that reflected the way the
warehouse was finished in 1921 along with a new design
proposal for the building. The drawings were completed
for Harvey Glanzer over a period of time in the early
1980s.27 Only a small portion of the plans were carried
12out, the ground floor was renovated for a gift shop and the
second floor of the annex was turned into a small café for
visitors.28 The warehouse stopped being open to the public
sometime in the early 90s and was only opened to the public
on Frank Lloyd Wright’s birthday, which Richland Center
celebrated each year during the 1990s. Richland Center
is a different place than it was when the warehouse was
finished, economically and socially, but it still hangs onto and
cherishes its historic architecture.
At 5,018 people Richland Center is still the largest
town in the county and remains the county seat. The two
major highways that run through the town were recently
re-routed from directly through the central business district
to the former South Main Street two blocks west of where
the highways used to run. However, in no way has access
been cut off from the central business district because of
this rerouting. The warehouse is located at the north east
corner on the 300 block of Church Street at its intersection
with Haseltine Street. Directly to the south and east are
single and multi family residences. To the north and west
the central business district spreads out across 10 blocks.
Currently local businesses in the area include several banks,
post office, public library, book store, art gallery, gift and
coffee shop, record store, grocery store, gas stations, retire-
ment housing, theater, antique store and various offices
and apartment housing. Since 1967 the town has also been
home to a branch of the University of Wisconsin. The
13town and surrounding area also maintains and promotes
its natural context and carefully maintains and promotes
local bike trails, camp grounds and class I trout streams.29
There are also active theater groups and dance companies
that call Richland Center home. The warehouse that stands
today is a combination of the original storage space and a
partially renovated ground floor and annex. In order for
the warehouse to serve any purpose in the future its present
spaces need to be matched to, or able to be adapted, to the
needs of a potential user. The open floor plan within the
warehouse is typical of the building type, but Wright experi-
mented with the structural elements and materials in order
to maximize its load bearing capacity as well as its architec-
tural character.
Wright combines exotic influences with his previous
interests like the use of simple shapes, in this case the
square, to create the decorative elements on the warehouse.
The thick walls and narrow openings in the building give
it a massing that also recalls Mayan temples. Architectural
historian Vincent Scully writes that the warehouse is an
expression of Wright’s desire for “maximum mass, sculptural
weight, monumentality even more dense and earth-pressing
than he had achieved before – and one more primitive,
separate from his earlier culture, exotic to his eyes and deep
in time.”30
14
Structure This exercise in monumental architecture gave
German a warehouse that was not only unique for the
town, but for the whole warehouse building type. Most
warehouses of the day had the maximum amount of glass
possible in order to light the interior spaces. The German
warehouse has only three small strips of glazing on each
façade on the interstitial floors and fifty-four thin windows
punched into the frieze. Another unique characteristic of
this structure is the foundation system Wright used. A cork
pad stabilizes the building against shock. This same type
of foundation was used by Wright at his Imperial Hotel in
earthquake prone Tokyo.
15
A rail line was to run adjacent to the warehouse, and presumably
this would have absorbed vibrations that could have damaged
the structure along with the loads associated with storing large
amounts of goods. The concrete frieze in a pattern of repeating
squares surrounding the fourth floor is the most distinctive
and unusual part of Wright’s warehouse. The fact that Wright
created a highly articulated pattern in concrete is indicative of
his desire to work with the material in ways that he had not been
successful with before.
Wright’s fascination with concrete was on par with
many other architects at the turn of the century. His first use
of the material as a structural system came in 1904 at Unity
Temple in Chicago.31 At this point in his career he wanted
Section depicting proposed rail line
Cork pad laid underneath basement floor slab
16to achieve articulation in concrete, which he found to be
extremely difficult at the beginning of his experimenta-
tions with it. The structural system of the warehouse is an
early patented two-way reinforced concrete slab and column
system called the “Barton Spider Web System.”32 Wright
wrote, retrospectively, in 1929 “Aesthetically concrete has
no song nor any story …because in itself it is an amalgam,
aggregate, compound. And cement, the binding medium
is characterless.”33 Early reinforced concrete systems had
floor slabs were not smooth but looked more like a post
and beam system of timber or masonry. Claude A. Turner,
of Minneapolis, was the first to eliminate the beams which
dropped out of the floor slabs to create a completely
smooth slab held up with “mushroom” capped columns.34
Turner’s system was the first in a series of patented concrete
structures which included the one that Wright chose for the
warehouse – the Barton Spider Web System.
While Turner’s system was developed in Minneapolis,
Chicago also had its fair share of concrete construction and
innovation occurring at the turn of the 20th century. It is
probably more important to note the systems coming out of
Chicago, considering Wright’s connections to the city. When
the commission for the warehouse came about, Wright was
forced to consider the structural loads that the building
would need to withstand. Reinforced concrete was the ideal
system to accommodate these heavy loads. At the time four
specific systems had emerged as being at the forefront of
17building technology. Being as astute as he was about new
structural systems, Wright probably chose this system not
just based upon its load capacity, but also because of its
place as a cutting edge technology as well as the “organic
nature” of its reinforcing.35
Called the “Barton Spider-Web” the main structure
of the building is an early example of a two-way reinforced
flat slab and column system.36 The original patent for
this system was filed by Francis M Barton in 1915. Barton
was originally an architect in Chicago but dedicated the last
decade of his career to the manufacture of his reinforced
concrete structures.37 Barton writes in the patent descrip-
tion that he was attempting to create a far more economical
reinforced concrete slab. He achieved this by eliminating
beams and supporting the entire slab on mushroom cap
columns. This not only decreased the depth of the floor
slab and saved material, but also created new architectural
implications. For instance, instead of a ceiling with a maze
of crisscrossing beams there could now be a smooth unin-
terrupted surface along the ceiling plane. This floor slab
is completely supported by the “spider-web” of reinforced
steel bars as well as a system of columns running from the
foundation to the top floor.38
18
Above: Connection of Floor Slab to Walls Below: Detail of reinforcing running through columnsF.M. Burton Patent Drawings, 1915
19John Howe, a former apprentice at Taliesin during
the construction of the warehouse, compares this system
to a tree; “there is structural continuity of cantilevering
action from the roots, through the trunk and branches to the
outermost twigs.”39 Wright not only set out to rethink uses
for concrete as far as structure, but also with regards to the
purely decorative portions of the structure overlaying the
concrete column and slab system.
Concrete was Wright’s material of choice for the
most dramatic as well as functional, parts of the building,
the frieze and the structural system. The make up of the
concrete is thought to be of the cement that German
himself sold, which was the same as the standard estab-
lished for Portland Cement in 1917. The rest of the
mixture is river sand and gravel from a supplier in Janesville,
Wisconsin.40 The frieze was site cast in three separate
pieces, and the frieze measures approximately fourteen feet
tall, covering the full extent of the fourth floor and creating
the roof parapet. Wright’s treatment of concrete here is
seen as a precursor to his textile block, like those found at
the Hollyhock House in Los Angeles. The square patterns
Wright designed for the frieze combined with the mass and
shape of the rest of the building are a case study in Wright’s
desire to cast concrete into geometric as well as structural
form while experimenting with forms derived from his
fascination with Mayan architecture. These elements come
20together to form a unique building which symbolizes a very
distinct and interesting portion of Wright’s long career.
Anthony Alofsin wrote that “The A.D. German
Warehouse demonstrates the nature of the technology of its
materials as much as it displays exoticism.”41 The “nature
of the technology of its materials” is manifest in a limited
palette of concrete, brick and glass. Wright’s fascination with
ancient Mayan architecture certainly informed the exterior
formal elements of the warehouse but the underlying
structure was a very modern system. The exotic forms
that Wright molded the brick, glass and concrete into are
showing their age at nearly 90 years and need to be assessed
in order for the building to remain standing for years to
come.
Four pilasters run along the north and south exterior
walls and five pilasters run along the east and west walls and
add strength to the brick wall. The fact that there are so few
windows can either be attributed to a design decision (not
likely) or to the fact that more brick wall and fewer windows
allowed for a more controllable storage environment. The
fourth floor is surrounded by an ornamental concrete frieze
with 54 small windows separating the sections of concrete.
The decorative concrete was cast in different three sections
of wooden form work. From bottom to top each piece of
the frieze is placed slightly farther away from the wall so
the building appears to be flared out at the top. In terms of
usable space the warehouse contains approximately 14,990
21square feet of usable space. The basement level is not
contained in that calculation. The first through fourth floors
of the warehouse section are approximately 3600 square
feet each and the annex contains around 450 square feet of
space.42
The original drawings for the warehouse show
each of the four floor slabs supported by twenty four
reinforced concrete columns which in turn rest on 4’x4’
square footings. At this date there are no known structural
concerns with the concrete structure.43 No original
structural drawings exist for the warehouse, but the patent
drawings are most likely a close match to what was actually
built as the system is named specifically on one sheet of the
remaining architectural drawings. A layer of cork lies under
the basement floor slab that was presumably to absorb the
shock of a train line that would have run along the west
side of the building but was never built. The interior of
the building has been closed the general public for nearly a
decade and therefore any damage to the interior structure
is difficult to determine. However, simply viewing the
frieze from the exterior of the building may hold clues as to
possible damage on the interior.
22The frieze, probably the most recognizable element
of the warehouse, has easily identifiable white and black
stains running down the concrete. The most extensive
staining occurs on the northeast side of the frieze. These
white stains are evidence of efflorescence, and the amount
of lime that has leeched out of the concrete has completely
obscured the original material in a thick coating. Typically
efflorescence is not a threatening occurrence in concrete;
however the extent to which this has coated the surface
along with the extensive cracking present suggests water is
seriously accelerating the deterioration of the concrete. The
frieze is also suffering from many cracks in varying sizes.
These could have formed by any number of reasons, from
the building settling unevenly, freeze thaw cycles or poor
original craftsmanship. However, water damage is a primary
concern simply based on photographic evidence that shows
the large amount of efflorescence occurring at the northeast
corner.
23
The highlighted portions of the original section and
north elevation drawings below show the location of the
efflorescence in relation to the roof line and the photo on
the right demonstrates that water may very well be entering
where the concrete and the roof slab intersect.
Water moving through the frieze could raise
concerns about the stability of the connections used to
24fasten the concrete pieces to the interior brick wall. They
are most likely similar to the metal connections used to
attach architectural terra cotta and could be corroded at this
point.44
The photograph on the left was taken in 1981
by Randolph Henning, who completed his Master of
Architecture thesis on the warehouse in the early 1980s,
while the photo on the right was taken in the fall of 2007.
The storefront on the warehouse also has prominent
concrete features which are experiencing deterioration.
Columns with decorated capitals and extensions of the
second floor slab create the formal elements of this portion
of the warehouse. Some of the most striking deterioration
is occurring on the columns where the concrete has eroded
significantly in the past twenty years. Spalling is present in
several locations along the concrete that rings the base of
the building. Both exposed ends of the second floor slab,
the store front canopy in the front and the loading dock
at the rear are both showing signs of deterioration from
25spalling. This spalling could be caused by the regular freeze
thaw cycles that the building experiences each year where
the water that is absorbed into the concrete freezes, expands
and subsequently causes pieces of the concrete to break off.
If the spalling is indeed being caused by this then repairs
can be made by removing the weak deteriorated concrete
and installing a matching patch of new concrete.45 The
loading roof of the loading dock is also experiencing heavy
efflorescence. The other main exterior material besides
concrete is brick.
Although it may appear to be load bearing, the
exterior wall of brick does not carry the main structural
loads of the building. It is essentially a decorative element
wrapped around the reinforced concrete structure. This was
common for architects of the day who were still attempting
to sort out the design implications of this new structural
system.46 Wright designed a twelve inch wall of Flemish
bond brick that uses two colors of brick: red on the exterior
and yellow on the inside. Every fourth red brick header
is visible on the inside creating a pattern in the interior
walls. A small airspace occurs between the two wythes
of brick that adds insulation value to the wall. From the
outside the warehouse appears to be a masonry load bearing
structure though, as noted earlier, all the structural work
is done by the reinforced concrete system and the brick
façade most likely supports its own weight and that of the
frieze.47 Condition wise, there is evidence that many of
Deterioration around opening in
loading dock roof
26the mortar joints have deteriorated; this is most likely due
to poor original workmanship where mortar was only put
on one end of the brick instead of both during construc-
tion.48 This has lead to holes in the mortar at the head of
the bricks; repointing can solve this problem.49 There is also
minor efflorescence occurring approximately where the third
floor slab meets the brick. Repointing the mortar joints will
prevent more moisture from entering the wall cavity as well
as restore the aesthetic quality of the wall.
How to go about repairing the building and what
standards need to be followed are two important decisions
that need to be made. Because of its place on the National
Register of Historic Places, it is important that the standards
used to make repairs and restorations follow the Secretary
of the Interior’s standards. At the present time the owners
have plans to reopen the building to the public by the end
of May 2008. They have also expressed concerns about the
lack of a functioning elevator to service the upper floors and
will be replacing it before the building is reopened.50 Based
on observations of problems on the exterior of the building
caused by water, there could be a possibility that water is
causing problems on the interior as well.
Since the open floor plan on the interior has been
preserved the warehouse could certainly return to being
used as storage space. The ground level, with its large
windows that bring in a large amount of natural light could
easily return to some sort of commercial use. Although
Brick showing deteriorated
mortar joints
27the building does not have a large amount of glazing on
the second and third floors the fourth floor is ringed by
fifty four windows which let in a considerable amount of
light. The present problem at hand for the current owners
is the lack of accessibility to the upper floors; the elevator
that serviced them is no longer working and in order for
the owners to open the building to all sectors of the public
it will need to be replaced.51 At this time the owners are
planning to re open the building to the public, by appoint-
ment, by summer 2008. Still, because it will not be open on
a regular day to day basis the warehouse could be a candidate
for mothballing until a more permanent reuse is found. This
would at least stabilize the building against further deteriora-
tion and ensure that it could remain in a usable condition for
the future.52
Buildings need to be kept up. Whether they are five
years old or ninety years old like the warehouse, issues with
the material deterioration, upgrading of building systems,
and compliance with codes need to be addressed. In the
case of the warehouse, I believe that a combination of
preservation and rehabilitation is needed in order to make
the building viable for the community again. These terms
carry specific definitions from the Secretary of the Interior
and address two of the most pressing issues facing the
warehouse: maintaining the historic character and details of
the building while making it useful for the community of
Richland Center. Rehabilitation is defined as “The process
28of returning a property to a state of utility, through repair
or alteration, which makes possible an efficient contempo-
rary use while preserving those portions and features of
the property which are significant to its historic, architec-
tural, and cultural values.”53 Rehabilitation is important to
the future of the warehouse because it will revive its most
important architectural features for years to come. It is
also absolutely vital that this building be reused in a way
that takes into account the needs of the community but is
not damaging to the architectural character of the structure
itself.
The future challenges that await this building are
many, but the decision of whether or not it should be saved
needs to be answered. It is certainly important to Richland
Center because of the storied and integral part Frank Lloyd
Wright has played in the town’s history. When the warehouse
was added to the National Register of Historic Places in
1974 certain things were assumed and predetermined for
the future of the warehouse. The first, and probably most
obvious, is that by being placed on the register the public
knows instantly that this building is significant. No addi-
tional research is needed to understand that there is a certain
amount of historical clout and prestige associated with being
placed on the register. Although public recognition through
the register itself is important it also presents a set of issues
to be grappled with if the building is in need of any sort of
alterations or repair.
29 Every element, from the reinforcing system which
flows throughout all the floors and columns to the recessed,
raised and rotated geometric forms in the frieze compose a
building that seems to be an anomaly yet is highly indicative of
Wright’s career and personal influences during the late teens and
early 1920s. For these reasons, the building has been placed on
the National Register of Historic Places. Its place on the list
assures that it will maintain some level respect and attention.
However, this is not a given. Active participation and inter-
vention by the owners is necessary for the building to last into
the next ninety years and beyond. It would be prudent to pay
attention to the standards set by the Secretary of the Interior
when considering any sort of intervention as far as this building
is concerned. But is it enough to say this building should be
reused simply because it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright?
Or, is it more important to consider the needs of the town even
if that means they have no use for the building? Regardless of
the designer or its future, this building represents a not-often
studied, yet very important formative time in Wright’s career
as well as a visual reminder of a bygone era in the history of
Richland Center.
30NOTES
1 Anthony Alofsin. Frank Lloyd Wright--the lost years, 1910-1922 : a study of influence (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1993),
2 Ibid, 29.
3 Randolph Henning. The A.D. German Warehouse a Rehabilitation & Adaptive Reuse Design. (Univ. of Wisconsin Milwaukee Department of Architecture 1980). 17.
4 J. Rausch. Architectural Survey of Richland Center
5 Henning, 31.
6 J. Rausch. Architectural Survey of Richland Center
7 Henning, The AD German Warehouse, 31.
8 Margaret H. Scott. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Warehouse in Richland Center Wisconsin, (Richland Center, WI: Richland County Publishers, 1984), 99.
9 Ibid., 108.
10 Ibid., 138.
11 Jack Quinan. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin building : myth and fact (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987) MA 66.
12 Alofsin, The Lost Years, 56
13 Ibid., 56.
14 Vincent Scully. Frank Lloyd Wright. (New York City: R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, 1960), 13.
15 Alofsin, 223.
3116 Neil Levine, The architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright (Princeton University Press, 1997). 17 Alofsin, 231.
18 Frank Lloyd Wright, The Future of Architecture. (New American Library, Horizon Press, 1953) 52-53.
19 Frank Lloyd Wright [Alterations to the AD German Warehouse.] 1934. Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Taliesin West. Scottsdale, Arizona.
20 Henning, The A.D. German Warehouse, 8.
21 Scott, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Warehouse, 151.
22 Ibid., 161
23 Ibid., 169.
24 Ibid., 190.
25 Ibid., 190
26 Howe, John. Letter to Randolph Henning. 12 Apr. 1980. John Howe Papers. Northwest Architectural Archives University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
27 Howe, John. [Drawings for a Renovation of the AD German Warehouse.] 1980. North West Architectural Archives. University of Minnesota. 6 Sept. 2007.
28 Scott, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Warehouse, 197.
29 Richland Area Chamber/Main Street. 2007. City of Richland Center. 16 Dec. 2007 <http://www.richlandchamber.com/index.html>.
30 Vincent Scully. Frank Lloyd Wright. (New York City: R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, 1960)
3231 Eaton, Leonard K. Frank Lloyd Wright and the Concrete Slab and Column. Journal of Architecture 3 (1998): 315-346. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. 30 Mar. 2008.
32 Frank Lloyd Wright, Original 1917 Plans For the AD German Warehouse. Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Taliesin West, Scottsdale, Arizona.
33 Kenneth Frampton. Studies in tectonic culture: the poetics of construction in nineteenth and twentieth century architecture (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press 1995)
34 Eaton, FLW and the Concrete Slab and Column, 8.
35 Ibid, 12.
36Frank Lloyd Wright, Original 1917 Plans For the AD German Warehouse. Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Taliesin West, Scottsdale, Arizona.
37Harold T Wolff, Unusual Craftsman House Seeks Sunlight, Ridge Historical Society, Chicago, IL.
38 Barton, Francis M. United States. United States Patent Office. Francis M. Barton, of Chicago, Illinois, Reinforced Concrete Building Construction. 5 Oct. 1915. 10 Mar. 2008.
39 John Howe, Building History and Description, 1980. John Howe Collection, Northwest Architectural Archives, University of Minnesota.
40Scott, 107.
41 Alofsin, The Lost Years
42 John Howe, Net and Gross Area Calculations, 1980. John Howe Collection, Northwest Architectural Archives, University of Minnesota.
43 Beth Caulkins, Personal Interview, 25 March 2008.
44 Stephen J. Weeks. Personal interview. 8 Nov. 2007.
45 William B. Coney, AIA, National Park Service Preservation Briefs, Preservation of Historic Concrete
33Problems and General Approaches, http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/tps/briefs/brief15.htm.
46 Eaton, FLW and the Concrete Slab and Column, 10.
47Stephen J. Weeks. Personal interview. 8 Nov. 2007.
48Ibid.
49Robert Mack FAIA, John P. Speweik, National Park Service Preservation Briefs, Repointing Mortar Joints in Historic Masonry Buildings, http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/tps/briefs/brief02.htm#Identifying%20the%20Problem%20Before%20Repointing.
50 Beth Caulkins, Personal Interview, 25 March 2008
51Beth Caulkins, Personal Interview, 25 March 2008.
52 Sharon C. Park, AIA, National Park Service Preservation Briefs, Mothballing Historic Buildings, http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/tps/briefs/brief31.htm
53United States. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places. US Department of the Interior. Secretary of the Interior’s Standards Codified in 36 CFR 67 for Use in the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives Program. 17 Dec. 2007.
34BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alofsin, Anthony. Frank Lloyd Wright--the Lost Years, 1910-1922 : a Study of Influence. University of Chicago P, 1999.
Barton, Francis M. United States. United States Patent Office. Francis M. Barton, of Chicago, Illinois,
Reinforced Concrete Building Construction. 5 Oct. 1915. 10 Mar. 2008.
Beth Caulkins, Personal Interview, 25 March 2008.
Coney, William B. AIA, National Park Service Preservation Briefs, Preservation of Historic Concrete
Problems and General Approaches, http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/tps/briefs/brief15.htm.
Eaton, Leonard K. Frank Lloyd Wright and the Concrete Slab and Column. Journal of Architecture 3 (1998): 315-346. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. 30 Mar. 2008
Frampton, Kenneth. Studies in tectonic culture: the poetics of construction in nineteenth and twentieth century architecture (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press 1995)
Henning, Randolph. The a.D. German Warehouse a Rehabilitation & Adaptive Reuse Design. Diss. Univ. of Wisconsin Milwaukee, 1980.
Howe, John. Letter to Randolph Henning. 12 Apr. 1980. John Howe Papers. Northwest Architectural Archives University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
Howe, John, Building History and Description, 1980. John Howe Collection, Northwest Architectural Archives, University of Minnesota.
Howe, John. [Drawings for a Renovation of the AD German Warehouse.] 1980. North West Architectural Archives. University of Minnesota. 6 Sept. 2007.
John Howe, Net and Gross Area Calculations, 1980. John Howe Collection, Northwest Architectural Achives, University of Minnesota.
35Levine, Neil. The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. Princeton UP, 1997.
Mack, Robert FAIA, Speweik, John P., National Park Service Preservation Briefs, Repointing Mortar Joints in Historic Masonry Buildings, http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/tps/briefs/ brief02.htm#Identifying%20the%20Problem%20Before%20Repointing.
Park, Sharon C. AIA, National Park Service Preservation Briefs, Mothballing Historic Buildings, http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/tps/briefs/brief31.htm.
Quinan, Jack. Frank Lloyd Wright's Larkin Building : Myth and Fact. Cambridge: The MIT PCam, 1987.
Rausch, J. Architectural Survey of Richland Center. Richland County History Room, Brewer Public Library. Richland Center, WI.
Richland Area Chamber/Main Street. 2007. City of Richland Center. 16 Dec. 2007 <http://www. richlandchamber.com/index.html>.
Scott, Margaret. Frank Lloyd Wright’S Warehouse in Richland Center Wisconsin. Richland Center: Richland County, 1984.
Scully, Vincent. Frank Lloyd Wright. New York City: R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, 1960.
United States. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places. US Department of the Interior. Secretary of the Interior's Standards Codified in 36 CFR 67 for Use in the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives Program. 17 Dec. 2007.
Wolff, Harold T. Unusual Craftsman House Seeks Sunlight, Ridge Historical Society, Chicago, IL.
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Wright, Frank Lloyd. The Future of Architecture. New American Library Horizon P, 1953.
Wright, Frank Lloyd, Original 1917 Plans For the AD German Warehouse. Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Taliesin West,
Wright, Frank Lloyd [Alterations to the AD German Warehouse.] 1934. Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Taliesin West. Scottsdale, Arizona.
36Original Drawings - 1917 Provided by Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
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46Selected Sheets from Proposed 1934 Renovation
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