JOURNAL OF
ORGANIC ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN
VOL. 12 / NO. 2

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S MARTIN & MARTIN BUILDING:
A FORGOTTEN LANDMARK REDISCOVERED

60 pages :: Essay by Gregory M. Brewer

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin & Martin Building, more commonly known as the E-Z Polish Factory, was constructed in 1905 but remained unknown until rediscovered decades later by historian Grant Carpenter Manson. Manson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock paid relatively little attention to the building in their seminal works on Wright and it has remained largely unexamined until now. The Martin & Martin Building is a forgotten and misunderstood landmark of Frank Lloyd Wright’s early career. It was Wright’s first use of reinforced concrete and likely only the second building of reinforced concrete to be built in Chicago. What little has been written about the building has often been incorrect. No floor plan or other drawing of the finished building has ever been published, although several earlier drawings of Wright’s unbuilt design for a different site continue to be misidentified as the still extant 1905 building. Although both designs were carried through to construction documents, only preliminary drawings have survived. Thanks to Gregory Brewer's scholarship, this issue presents for the first time newly prepared drawings based on extensive field measurements and close examination of Wright’s surviving drawings for both projects. With never-before-published photos and drawings, this journal provides insights that will help shed light on this important early Wright designs.

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