Adoptable, high performing, large scale ontologies that can be extended to support multi-media play a crucial role in building effective content and knowledge management systems and applications. In the context of developing a Unified Taxonomy and Ontology Network (UTON), we have undertaken the task of developing a technology framework for building large scale ontologies. This paper describes the architecture of UTON and how general purpose resources such as WordNet and open directory project can be used in creating large scale ontology networks and how application specific taxonomies or ontologies can be derived from these general purpose tools and resources.