Frank Lloyd Wright remains one of America’s most influential architects, with landmark designs still drawing visitors across the U.S. Famous for his Prairie School homes and flat, ranch-style “Usonian” designs, architecture aficianados are likely familiar with his most lauded works: Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin or Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City; Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania; and the Frederick C. Robie House in Chicago, the very city where Wright began his career. However, the biggest single-site collection of Wright-designed structures in the world is sometimes overlooked, in many ways a “hidden treasure” located on a private college campus in central Florida. Florida Southern College in Lakeland features 13 Wright-designed buildings — including the Annie Pfeiffer Chapel and the Polk Science Building Planetarium – and is part of a National Historic Landmark district while still operating as a fully functioning university campus.
Set across approximately 113 acres of moss-draped live oaks and citrus groves landscaped around Lake Hollingsworth, the collection — “Child of the Sun,” as it is known — includes signature Wright aesthetics alongside unique design elements. Wright got involved in 1938, when it was just a small Methodist school run by Dr. Ludd Spivey on the site of a disused citrus grove. Spivey’s goal was for the school to become a futuristic, globally renowned center, and, inspired by a feature in Time Magazine, Spivey contacted the architect to see if he could help. Until Wright’s death in 1959, the project — a planned 18-structure community — remained ongoing; 13 buildings were ultimately completed.
Today, Florida Southern College is considered the oldest private comprehensive university in the state, with approximately 3,000 students enrolled. Not only do students study, work, and worship in the storied buildings Wright designed, but the public is also welcome to reserve campus tours…