Formica

No doubt you've spent an inordinate amount of time in the kitchen lately. If any thoughts were given to your hard-working kitchen counter at Thanksgiving time, they were probably of the "I need more counter space" or "which of my relatives spilled red wine and didn't clean it up?" variety. Chances are you didn't give much thought to the history of one of the country's most popular solid surfaces for counters: Formica.

In our Trade Catalog Collection and in the Kibele and Garrard Architectural Records Collection we have some very interesting examples of Formica from the early to late 20th century.
It was created in 1910 by David J. O'Conor, an engineer at Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, who impregnated sheets of paper with the new invention liquid Bakelite. He had created a durable surface with insulating properties. A few years later, in 1913, O'Conor and Herbert A. Faber, another engineer, left Westinghouse in order to form their own company in Cincinnati to focus on this new invention.


Wondering about the name? Faber is credited with that: because it could stand in place for mica, an insulator that was becoming increasingly expensive at the time, the product officially became Formica. And it went on to cover kitchen counters around the world.


Images:
Formica samples, 1920s-30s, Kibele and Garrard Architectural Records Collection, Drawings + Documents Archive, Ball State University Libraries.
Formica trade catalog, TC 146, 1960s, Trade Catalog Collection, Drawings + Documents Archive, Ball State University Libraries

Frank Lloyd Wright: Architectural Alchemist lecture November 18th

Frank Lloyd Wright: Architectural Alchemist
Thursday, November 18, 2010
5 pm reception & 5:30 pm lecture at ISU's Center for Performing and Fine Arts

A lecture by Dr. Sidney Robinson, faculty, Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture and Preservation Program Coordinator, Taliesin Preservation, Inc.

The power of Frank Lloyd Wright's creativity is demonstrated by the wide range of sources on which he based his architecture. He exercised his remarkable interpretive ability on Louis Sullivan's ornament, Japanese prints, music, and his own ornament. Wright's interpretation of non-architectural sources is the clearest evidence of his goal to make architecture integral and inclusive. We must take clues from this wide-ranging practice and continue these multiple dimensions in preserving his legacy.

This program is co-sponsored by Indiana Landmarks, the Swope Art Museum and Indiana State University, and is planned in conjunction with The Samara House: A Usonian Design by Frank Lloyd Wright, an exhibition at the Swope which runs through December 31, 2010.