Square D Company Administration Building, Perspective

Franz Lipp was one of the distinguished protégés of Danish-born Jens Jensen, the highly influential Prairie School landscape architect who worked with luminaries such as Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. Lipp was born and educated in Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1923. His practice developed through commercial and educational clients, and his projects were often located outside of major cities as businesses created their own campuses in suburban areas. This design for the Square D Company headquarters shows his sense of proportion and style, with continuous rows of trees with geometric foliage, wide lawns that mirror the planes, and long lines of the modern office building in the distance. Here too, sculpture finds a place, not as the focal point but rather as the defining element in a sheltered corner of the landscape.