Sunday, October 28, 2012

Frank Lloyd Wright - The View From Here

Last weekend I again had the opportunity to spend a little time on the Florida Southern College campus in Lakeland.  The reason being, that the original campus was designed and built by the great architect, Frank Lloyd Wright.

I can't claim to be any kind of authority on architecture or even very knowleable about architects and architecture in general, but I have always had an appreciation for it and am usually impressed when I enter a building designed by an architect.  You can tell when you have because architects almost always bring with them a sense of light and space and details that engineers and contractors lack.

Of course Frank Lloyd Wright is a giant among giants but I had never visited one of his buildings until a year ago and my first visit to Florida Southern.  Oh,  I knew about Fallingwater and Taliesin and had seen the photo books and slide shows, but nothing could prepare me for seeing the real thing and no photograph can capture it.  It's one of those things you have to experience to really understand.

Here is a little photo tour and I will try to let them speak for themselves and keep comments to a minimum.

Walking among the buildings and covered walkways is a visual symphony of light and shadows.  Everywhere you look, in any direction, you are met with a beauty that wants to draw you into it.
   
The campus and buildings are undergoing a complete refurbishing but it's an obviously huge and expensive task.  The buildings were built immediately following WWII and the workers were returning GI's who, for the most part, knew nothing about construction so as a result, the concrete and mortor is sub-standard and beginning to show serious deterioration.   Here, he has managed to take the hot afternoon sun and turn it into a warm glow.
 






The covered walkways that bisect the campus are truly interesting.  For one thing, they are only about 7 feet high so you can feel like you are in a tunnel but they have the very practical effect of protecting you from the afternoon Florida thunderstorms.  Also note the perfect alignment of overhang shadow to the sidewalk.  There is a lot more going on here than meets the eye.






I hope you enjoyed this little tour.  If you ever have a chance to visit one of his creations... do it!

26 comments:

  1. Thanks for the tour. It is something special. Some architects are too much into art-form but not functionality or livability. The great ones achieve both and throws in a touch of magic too.

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  2. What I liked were all the small little decorative details, texture and shapes. So many buildings are just plain, no art, no decoration.

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    1. I can really see some of your panels here Ellen. They are surely going to replace some of the glass in the restoration, send them a resume.

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  3. I just love sprawling, horizontal designs. Wright influenced Mies van der Rohe, another one of my favorites. We don't have a nearby Wright building, but Mies was the principal designer of the T-D complex in Toronto. I didn't know that before, but I left this comment box open for an hour while I read up on both men :-)
    Thanks for the photo tour, Mr. C.

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    1. I'm not familiar with Mies vand der Rohe, I'll have to do some research.

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  4. I'm glad you enjoyed your visit to Florida Southern! It's one of my favorite spots to walk here in Lakeland. They used to offer evening adult education classes and I tried to enroll several times, but the classes always got cancelled due to lack of interest.

    Funny you mention the low clearance on the walkways. We went to an open house there once, before our son decided on a different college. He's quite tall and kept thinking he had to duck going up stairs.

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    1. Thank you Peeper. Maybe next year we can hook up for a beer.

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    2. You're welcome. And "yes" on the beer. Or coffee.

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  5. the images do wonderful justice to the amazing work of Wright. he was a master of form, space and light. i have had the pleasure of visiting some of his other creations. it is like entering the world anew.
    hope you had a nice time with punch at the car show....
    cheers

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    1. It is indeed like entering a new world. I got that feeling from the I.M. Pei building at the National Art Museum in D.C. as well. Punch and I partied hard. What a sight, two old men leaning on each other for support staggering back to the motel.

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  6. Fantastic. Of course I'm just glad that I'm under 7 foot. Otherwise I'd probably feel violently discriminated against.

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    1. This is one of those tyranny of the minority things. Wright was short.

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  7. Very nice tour. The only Frank Lloyd Wright building I'm familiar with is the Marin County (CA) Courthouse. There's an uncanny similarity between that courthouse and the Southern Florida campus.

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    1. I suppose there are similarities between all of his projects. At least his ranch style projects.

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  8. Oh, Frank Lloyed, you gave us light. Thanks for this tour. I doubt if I would've seen it otherwise.

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    1. You are quite welcome Barb. Hope all is well with you after the storm.

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  9. For every beautiful building designed by an architect, I figure there were at least 100 ugly or dysfunctional ones designed. And sometimes when form takes top billing over function, the result can be a building that just does not work. Prime examples are arenas and stadiums. The man sits at his tilting table and conjures up something that John Q Public just adores. It is gorgeous and looks good on postcards. But what's this, oh yeah, he forgot to figure in a loading dock. Or that wonderful overhang will only allow car sized vehicles to offload passengers. I speak from experience having had to locate said loading docks at arenas and stadiums all around this great nation of ours when I drove rock n roll trucks.

    And if anyone wants to see the ugliest building south of Greenland, just look at the new courthouse they erected not 75 yards from my bikeshop. The State of Maine hired some real einsteins to design it. Looks like a prison or maybe a box store with a gun turret.

    But yeah, your image tour is nice. Frank knew his way around design. some very nice spces he created.

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    1. I think the new courthouse down here in Baja Georgia would give yours a run for the money. And yes, it was designed by an architect. Or actually, a team of architects. How does the old saying go... a camel is a horse designed by committee.

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  10. Architects may come and architects may go, and never change your point of view . . .

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    1. Ah my friend, but some will change them forever.

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    2. Mr. C. - Forget to credit Paul Simon for the quote . . . From the album Bridge Over Troubled Waters, So Long Frank Lloyd Wright, great song.

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  11. WOW! The angles and play of light are just beautiful, and you knew just how to point the camera to make the most of them. Thanks for sharing.

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