Photos and text © Mark Hertzberg (2026)
SC Johnson is almost finished demolishing the former St. Mary’s Hospital building (1933) on their campus in Racine. Why take up space on a Frank Lloyd Wright site about the demolition of a building that Wright had absolutely nothing to do with?
The answer is that there is a direct connection between the hospital building and Wright’s SC Johnson Research Tower, which was designed in 1943/44 and opened in November 1950.
When Dr. J.V. Steinle, the company’s research and development director proposed in 1943 that the company build a new R&D facility after the war, his site sketch included dotted lines marked “Future Expansion.” H.F. Johnson Jr. balked at giving Wright the commission even though it would be next to Wright’s landmark SC Johnson Administration Building. Wright eventually won Johnson over (the story of the commission is in both Jonathan Lipman’s book “Frank Lloyd Wright and the Johnson Wax Buildings” and my “Frank Lloyd Wright’s SC Johnson Research Tower.”). Wright’s dramatic design lacked that critical room for “Future Expansion” and was designed for only 50 chemists. The company began to outgrow it by 1957 and opened “carport labs” below the soaring structure. St. Mary’s sold the hospital building to SC Johnson in 1977 after moving to a new campus on the west side of Racine. SC Johnson repurposed the old hospital as their new R&D facility and closed the Research Tower in 1981. The new labs bore the name of the Louis Laboratories.
The Tower stood unused until 2014 when two floors were restored after the company got permission to bring tours there. Fortunately the company is privately held, because one can imagine how many publicly held companies would have demolished an unused building in spite of its architectural significance and its place in the company’s DNA as a symbol of creativity. By 2019 another company building close to Waxdale, the company’s manufacturing complex west of town became their new R&D facility, and it was St. Mary’s turn to stand empty. With high costs to maintain the empty building which had no foreseeable use to the company, demolition began in March.
There are no immediate plans for the site.
As a sidelight, some years ago I profiled Ken Dahlin, a well-known contemporary architect (Genesis Architecture). I wrote that he must have been pre-destined in his career because he was born in the old hospital, overlooking Wright’s landmark buildings.
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Hansen at her book talk at Boswell Books in Milwaukee, June 9, 2023.
Wright in Racine 