{"id":958,"date":"2025-04-09T17:29:43","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T17:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.camperscorner.net\/?p=958"},"modified":"2025-04-11T18:14:59","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T18:14:59","slug":"frank-lloyd-wrights-surprising-superfan-the-founder-of-dominos-pizza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.camperscorner.net\/index.php\/2025\/04\/09\/frank-lloyd-wrights-surprising-superfan-the-founder-of-dominos-pizza\/","title":{"rendered":"Frank Lloyd Wright\u2019s Surprising Superfan: The Founder of Domino\u2019s Pizza?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

One of the 20th-century architect\u2019s biggest admirers is a somewhat unexpected\u2014and similarly complicated\u2014man.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n
\n

It was the winter of 1985 and Domino\u2019s Pizza was on a hot streak. The franchise, founded two decades earlier<\/a> by Thomas Monaghan, had become the country\u2019s fast-growing pizza restaurant, and the first phase of Monaghan\u2019s unique vision for the company\u2019s headquarters was complete. This wasn\u2019t a standard HQ: it was a sprawling office park on rolling farmland outside Ann Arbor, Michigan, and unofficial shrine to Monaghan\u2019s longtime idol, Frank Lloyd Wright<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>
\n

The exterior of Domino\u2019s Farms in Ann Arbor, Michigan\u2014a sprawling office park designed to evoke Frank Lloyd Wright\u2019s Prairie style.<\/p>\n

Courtesy Domino\u2019s Farms<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n

Frank Lloyd Wright appreciation verging on the fanatical is no rarity; people still buy his homes<\/a> for millions, even though they\u2019re notorious for aging poorly<\/a>, and there\u2019s a substantial web of organizations dedicated to the preservation of his work<\/a>. Still, there has perhaps been no person more (unexpectedly) committed to the 20th-century architect\u2019s vision than the Domino\u2019s founder. As the story goes<\/a>, Monaghan first discovered Wright\u2019s work at a library in Michigan when he was 12, then admired his Imperial Hotel<\/a> while serving in the Marine Corps in Tokyo. By the \u201980s and early \u201990s, once Domino\u2019s had hit its stride, the founder was gobbling up Frank Lloyd Wright furniture at an unbelievable rate and cost. The volume was so high that Monaghan was considered a key factor in the hike in prices for Wright\u2019s works, according to a 1988 New York Times <\/i>story<\/a>, and he was criticized<\/a> by preservationists who believed deep-pocketed collectors were destroying the artistic value of Wright homes as they snapped up built-in details of the structures that would leave them with less of their original character. Though total amount for this yearslong spending spree are unavailable, another 1988 New York Times<\/i> story<\/a> reported that Monaghan spent over $14 million on Wright objects alone by that time, acquiring “the largest collection of the architect\u2019s furniture, stained glass, and decorative objects anywhere.” Never mind the $330,000 he spent a few years earlier on Wright\u2019s 1941 Carlton D. Wall House (also known as Snowflake) and a 1953 Usonian<\/a> that had been dismantled and stored away for decades. Or that $120 million office park.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\"An<\/a>
\n

Inside the long, slow-slung structure, several of the Domino Pizza founder\u2019s collections are on display, including his massive trove of Wright objects. <\/p>\n

Courtesy Domino\u2019s Farms<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n

Just outside Ann Arbor on a street named Frank Lloyd Wright Drive, Domino\u2019s Farms<\/a> is a behemoth structure that spans a half-mile long and over 400,000 square feet. Monaghan tasked architect Gunnar Birkerts<\/a> (a former employee of Eero Saarinen<\/a>) with designing the structure to evoke Wright\u2019s Prairie style. “Tom is addicted to Frank Lloyd Wright without any reservation,” Birkerts told the New York Times<\/i><\/a> <\/i>in 1985. The office building is pure postmodern pastiche: With its flat planes and red brick, it\u2019s legibly Wright-inspired on the exterior, though largely unrelated to the Midwestern architect\u2019s style on the interior, save for the chairman\u2019s suite, with its brick hearth and wood-paneled walls.<\/p>\n

At the time of the new HQ\u2019s construction, the Domino\u2019s owner (who\u2019d recently bought the Detroit Tigers) was emphatic about Wright\u2019s brilliance. “I\u2019ve been evangelizing Frank Lloyd Wright all my life,” Monaghan told the New York Times<\/i><\/a>. “I\u2019ve never met anyone yet who hasn\u2019t been impressed.” The business tycoon spoke about drawing attention to Wright\u2019s genius as imperative, like the architect\u2019s work might otherwise be completely forgotten. “Wright is the equal if not the superior of Michelangelo,” he stated in an interview with historian Hugh Howard in the 1991 book Preservationist\u2019s Progress<\/a><\/i>. This wasn\u2019t just a personal fixation, but in some ways, a strange offshoot of the Domino\u2019s Pizza brand. For a roughly decade-long period, Frank Lloyd Wright\u2014and architecture by extension\u2014was a part of the Domino\u2019s corporate identity. You could buy calendars<\/a> that featured “Selections from the Domino\u2019s Center for Architecture and Design” and read semifrequently about Monaghan\u2019s latest auction exploits in the Times<\/i>. There was a Domino\u2019s-sponsored award for the “Domino\u2019s Pizza World\u2019s Top 30 Architects.” Design historian David A. Banks wrote a 1989 book titled Frank Lloyd Wright: Preserving an Architectural Heritage, Decorative Designs From the Domino’s Pizza Collection<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Tom<\/a>
\n

Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino\u2019s Pizza, on the University of Ave Maria campus in the Catholic-centric planned community of the same name he founded in Florida.<\/p>\n

Photo by Joe Raedle\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

See the full story on Dwell.com: Frank Lloyd Wright\u2019s Surprising Superfan: The Founder of Domino\u2019s Pizza?<\/a><\/b>
Related stories:<\/span><\/p>\n