Frank Lloyd Wright's Florida Southern College

Florida Southern College in Lakeland boasts the largest single-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in the world. With eleven structures planned and designed by Wright, the campus forms a rich tableau for examining the architect's philosophy and design practice.

In this generously illustrated volume, Dale Allen Gyure tells the engaging story of the ambitious project from beginning to end. The college's dynamic president, Ludd M. Spivey, wanted the grounds and buildings redesigned to embody a modern and distinctly American expression of Protestant theology. Informed by Spivey's vision, his own early educational experience, and his architectural philosophy, Wright conceived the "Child of the Sun" complex.

The campus plan was unified, but not in a balanced, symmetrical manner like the standard American college. Instead, Wright imposed order through the repetition of basic geometric forms, the appearance of thirty-and sixty-degree angles in plan and buildings, and covered walkways that connected every building on campus.

The Florida Southern campus is one of Wright's most autobiographical creations. Here he weaved together a set of buildings that revealed his philosophy of man's relationship to nature and of the site's importance to architecture, and his strong belief in connections between buildings and democracy. Much like Thomas Jefferson's famous plan for the University of Virginia, the academic village that Wright designed for Florida Southern College expresses a dramatic and personal statement about education in a democratic society. Little studied to date, this significant campus and its history are finally given the attention they deserve in this fascinating volume.

Dale Allen Gyure, an expert in educational architecture, is associate professor of architecture at Lawrence Technological University.