Architecture’s equivalent of the phrase “it’s not the meat, it’s the motion” might be “it’s not the buildings, it’s their relationship to the surroundings.” Though that doesn’t sound nearly as sexy, it is undoubtedly true that any building is only as good as how it enlivens, focuses, crystallizes, blends in with, or, better yet, reaches out and creates concrete relations to its physical context. I was reminded of that truth recently as I wandered under the canopies that connect the 18(!) buildings Frank Lloyd Wright designed for Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Fla. The structures themselves are, as always with this less-than-modest architect’s work, both interesting and quirky. But what really sets the campus apart is the way Wright strung together the objects he designed with a network of covered walkways that shelter you from the sub-tropical sun and rain.
Wright began working at Florida Southern in 1938 and kept at it until his death more than two decades later. In that period, he laid out a general plan, anchored the Methodist school’s facilities with the Pfeiffer Chapel—which includes a 65-foot bell tower—and designed a number of academic structures and offices, including the original library, an arts and sciences classroom building, and an administrative core. He connected all of these with what the college wound up calling the Esplanade. This consists of what are essentially concrete pergolas that march across most of the 80-acre campus between the core buildings. At times, they act as porticos attached to classroom buildings, while at other times they sail across what had been a citrus grove (Wright sought to preserve the orange trees, but few survive) to give academicians shelter as they move across the gently sloping site. The columns holding up the structure have triangular bases that support the roofs with splayed flanges. Instead of capitals, those supports feature indentations that create a rhythm of squares echoing the textile blocks (another Wright specialty) making up sections of many of the original buildings. The edges of the roof are faced with patinaed copper stamped with another triangular pattern. The whole structure is low, again as befitting the horizon-loving architect, but also in a way that visually and practically extends the canopy of such trees that survived or were planted subsequently.
The obvious connection here is to Thomas Jefferson’s “academical village” at the University of Virginia. Though Wright never referenced it or any of the president-architect’s work, Jefferson’s design seems like an obvious source of inspiration. On the other hand, the presence of verandas and covered walkways throughout the Spanish-influenced parts of the southern United States may stand as a more general historical context. What is more important, the idea is logical, both in terms of comfort (shade from sun and rain) and as a device that defines, without enclosing, an academic campus.
Creating a place, without making interior in a literal or a metaphysical sense, is the key here. Both Jefferson’s and Wright’s designs were open to their surroundings, gesturing out to the Blue Ridge Mountains in the former’s case, and inviting visitors in from the residential area around Florida Southern in the latter’s. In both instances, however, subsequent developments have closed in the compositions. At the University of Virginia, McKim, Mead & White’s colossal, though beautifully designed, gymnasium has plugged up the open end of the Lawn, as the original campus is called, while in Lakeland a rather less felicitous library building not only dominates one end of the campus (and builds on top of the rise, a no-no for Wright), but is a hermetic box that removes itself from the tendrils Wright spread throughout the original campus. Also in both cases, the campuses continued to grow, endowing subsequent buildings with ever less quality as the years went on, slowly leaching out and dissolving any coherence or connection their original architects had envisioned.
In Wright’s design, that sense of openness and connection continued into some of the original buildings (though not the ones done since). The lightness of the openwork bell tower belies its height, while cantilevers and splays inside the chapel bring the congregation together without the sense of hierarchy that most nave churches imply. Between the original classroom buildings are courtyards where students can congregate. In the original library, the reading room and stacks were open to each other in a manner that recalled the best of Alvar Aalto’s libraries. Everywhere you turn, spaces have a preamble—again, this is a hallmark of much of Wright’s best work. There are niches and nooks and antechambers and shaded corners between buildings that ease and confuse the transition between building and outside and between structure and enclosure. Place is made through connection, and as spaces for informal or preparatory gathering.
Wright and Jefferson were both idealists and set forth visions of what they thought American democracy could and should be, not only in words (Wright’s were somewhat less reasoned and logical than Jefferson’s) but also in buildings. The models they produced were highly influential: Our academic villages are some of the strongest urban and exurban ensembles of what a community could be as a defined, but open composition of public spaces. You can find them from the University of California to Ivy League schools like Yale and Princeton, and from Rice in Houston to Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Few of those, however, are as daring and dramatic in their statement of the ideal of an open and sheltered place of study, contemplation, discussion, and even celebration of shared values and exploration as the designs of Florida Southern. I would highly recommend that any campus architect—before they churn out yet another box covered with a veneer of stone or brick to make it seem as if it is continuing a hallowed tradition, or even plan one of the research and development “campuses” now also dotting our country—take a trip to Lakeland to see how it is done properly.
The views and conclusions from this author are not necessarily those of ARCHITECT magazine or of The American Institute of Architects.
Read more: The latest from columnist Aaron Betsky includes reviews of Edward Hopper's show at the Whitney, Jean Nouvel's new monograph, and an exhibition on architectural image-making at A83 in New York.
