Child of the Sun

The bright blue sky opens up wide over the uninteresting terrain that makes up the geography of central Florida.  Like the sky above it, Lake Hollingsworth is large and blue and its soft texture forms the perfect background to the landmark college campus that abuts it.  Florida Southern College has seen thousands of students pass through its doors since it first opened its 100 acre campus in Lakeland in 1922, its fourth home since its founding in 1885.  Despite its upstanding reputation as a fantastic liberal arts college, it is probably best known, at least in the architecture community, as the college that Frank Lloyd Wright designed and the largest collection of his buildings on the planet. 

The historic buildings of FSC are dotted across the campus and woven together through a network of low cantilevered esplanades, protecting students and faculty from the prevalent sun and occasional monsoon that stereotype Florida’s weather.  Although all of the buildings provide important functions to the college, the most memorable is the Annie Pfeiffer Chapel, the first building to be completed in 1941.  Through the perforated blocks that make up most of the building’s shell, natural illumination shines through colored glass pieces spreading vibrant, prismatic light throughout the neutral concrete interior.  These expressive concrete forms were a hallmark of Frank Lloyd Wright, adapted from a system he originally designed for a series of homes built in California during the roaring ‘20s.  The forms integrated function and design into one module and allowed the construction process to be streamlined.

In true Wright fashion, all of the structures are very respectful of the natural environment in which the campus resides.  The esplanades in particular are low, slicing just beneath the branches of the old trees adjacent to them.  The columns supporting the esplanades are all spaced on the same gauge that the orange trees that once made up the grove in which the campus is now located, too. 

Beyond the design of the buildings and planning of the campus, the best thing about the history of Florida Southern College and the Wright connection is the relationship that was hewn from the commission that started in 1938.  During the height of the Great Depression, Dr. Ludd Spivey, was inspired to build the “modern American campus” for FSC after a trip to Europe, and he knew the perfect architect for the job.  Through the genius of Dr. Spivey and Mr. Wright, who offered scholarships to students to help build the structures Wright designed from the ground up, the campus slowly began to take shape over the next decade.  It is a quintessentially American story that such an amazing landmark grew out of the greatest economic collapse in modern time and later the strain that World War II put on the availability of materials and manpower across all sectors.

Today, the college and Wright’s famous buildings are experiencing an explosion of renewed interest and respect.  In the past few years, the academic program of the FSC has received recognition from a number of different sources.  Since 1992 the visitor center has welcomed guests from all over the world in search of information on the famous architect and to see the buildings, many which have been restored or are undergoing restoration, that make up the “Child of the Sun”.

 

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