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The Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright at Florida Southern College (FL) (Images of America)

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`The Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright at Florida Southern College' is a significant new entry in a hitherto neglected area of Wright's building projects. Over the course of 20 years the architect constructed at the Lakeland, Florida college no less than half of what started out to be an 18 building campus, the largest collection of his creations at any one site in the world.

Randall MacDonald and Nora Galbraith, librarians at Florida Southern College, and James Rogers, professor of art and art history there, have put together a photo book of oftentimes rare pictures recording the 20 year construction process of these delightful buildings making up Wright's sole extended statement regarding the collegiate educational process in this country. The factually detailed account primarily utilizes photo captions rather than plain text to describe the buildings and additional structures that the architect was able to build at FSC before the retirement of the man who hired him, president of the college Ludd M. Spivey. Sadly neglected as a part of Wright's oeuvre since then, this valuable book hopefully begins a process of reintroducing such an important architectural collection to the public. Drawn from college and local library archives, and the authors' own collections, the black and white photos chronicle the long and often complicated construction process by which an obscure liberal arts school was transformed into a display of splendid buildings by the country's most notable architect. Starting with Wright's master plan for the 30 acre campus, the account follows the construction process of each building and structure up to their dedications as finished creations, and then brings their individual histories up to the present in the various refurbishing and restoration projects necessary to keep up with normal - and sometimes not so normal - deterioration over the intervening decades.

The numerous photos include many picturing Wright himself on the various construction sites, along with other individuals who were integral to the building and restoration processes of the campus, now a part of the National Register of Historical Places. The captions offer a concise and factual overview of the fascinating long and at times involved trials and tribulations construction techniques of the different buildings faced when Wright's creations were often well ahead of the normal ability of contractors and workers - including the college's own students - to follow, and of the ability of the small school's president to raise money for.

If there is one small flaw in the book it is its dependency on the college's own listing of the number and types of buildings which were finished of the original project. Florida Southern claims that there are 12 'structures' in existence of the original 18 `structures' Wright called for in his 1938 master plan for the campus. This was apparently done to include 2 non-building `structures' designed by the architect for the project: covered, cantilevered esplanades linking the buildings, and a spectacular `Waterdome' consisting of a broad circular pool and a centering `dome' of water created by fountain jets arrayed in a 360 degree pattern around the pool. In actuality, Wright's original master plan called for 18 BUILDINGS in all, PLUS 5 structures, in addition to the Waterdome and esplanades including a lakeside dock, an amphitheater and a fresh water swimming pool. In the end 9, not 10, of the 18 buildings were built (the administration building, listed by the college as two buildings, was in reality, as were the later industrial arts and sciences building, always meant to be a single building made up of different units), as well as the aforementioned 2 structures, meaning that in fact slightly less than half of Wright's entire original plan exists today.

A few other errors in the text are also minor. The actual number of full-time students at the college in 1938 was just over 400, not 500, and Spivey originally asked for a main chapel that would accommodate an enrollment of approximately twice that number which he hoped that Wright's involvement with the college would bring in. As built, however, the chapel was able to accommodate only something in the area of the mid-600's. The mile and a half number listed as making up the length of the esplanades today was actually what Wright called for in his original master plan: in the end only around half of that distance was constructed, with the south and west sides of his design never completed. Also, though Spivey himself apparently at one time erroneously used the number, the amphitheater was never intended to hold 5000 spectators but 2500: the former number given would have resulted in a structure so enormous it would have virtually dwarfed the lakeside part of the project and would obviously never have been countenanced by Wright following the original proportions of his design.

These few items aside, `The Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright at Florida Southern College' is a most important addition to the Wright literature, well researched and concisely written, and is hopefully just the beginning of works that will describe and popularize this long neglected portion of the architect's celebrated oeuvre. MacDonald, Galbreath and Rogers are to be greatly congratulated for an excellent and often fascinating pictorial and descriptively captioned book. Highly recommended for admirers of the great architect, as well as those interested in collegiate architecture in general.

The collaborative work of Randall M. MacDonald (Interim Director of Roux Library at Florida Southern College), Nora E. Galbraith (Florida Southern College librarian), and James G. Rogers Jr. (Professor of Art and Art History at Florida Southern College and an expert in Wright-designed buildings, "The Buildings Of Frank Lloyd Wright At Florida Southern College" focuses on what is the largest single-site collection of the famed (and controversial) American architect's unique structures. Profusely illustrated with black-and-white photography throughout, "The Buildings Of Frank Lloyd Wright At Florida Southern College" displays Wright's geographic and other thematic elements which he combined and recombined in ongoing visually harmonic three-dimensional iterations. Featuring vintage images of Wright's building construction that was to span more than twenty years of his career, "The Buildings Of Frank Lloyd Wright At Florida Southern College" is a unique and highly prized contribution to professional, and academic Architectural Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists for non-specialist general readers with an interest in the life and work of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Abbye A. Gorin, Ph.D., review of Images of America series, The Buildings Of Frank Lloyd Wrigt At Florida Southern College by Randall M. MacDonald, Nora E. Galbraith, and James G. Rogers Jr., Aradia Publishing 2007, 211 photographs, 127 pages.

The Buildings Of Frank Lloyd Wright At Florida Southern College is a visual analysis of the largest single-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright's work. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

Located in Lakeland, Florida, Wright's first visit to the campus was in 1938. He envisioned an 18-unit "Child of the Sun" campus, but only 12 of the structures were realized over the next 20 years (1938-1958).

Authors Mac Donald, Galbraith, both librarians, and Rogers, a professor of art and art history at Florida Southern, have done an outstanding archival and library search and have presented their findings in photo journalistic style to tell the story of the construction and evolution of the campus.

Thousands of visitors are attracted to the campus yearly. The Buildings Of Frank Lloyd Wright At Florida Southern College can serve as a guide to this Wright masterpiece. The book is a convenient size, 9-1/4" x 6-1/2",

soft cover, and contains 211 archival photographs which are of good quality. There is no index. The book is a contribution to the body of knowledge about the remarkable career of the noted American modernist, Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959).

The author knows a lot about the campus and the pictures are amazing but there is no sense of FLW's plan or philosophy. There is a hard to see hand drawing of the positions of the buildings but this book does not give a good idea of how these buildings relate to each other. Lots of small details but no feeling for the whole. It sounds like the building materials used did not hold up well to the Florida conditions so a lot of the details are gone.

I would have liked more information on the builders both the students and FLW's people. Not a lot of text, mostly pictures that are a little hard to place in relation to the buildings.

This book has many interesting facts and great written content. It also features many photos of construction that I've never seen before (and I am a FLW fan so I've seen many). My only complaint is that I wish the book was larger - the photos could have been much better in a larger format. I understand that the smaller format allowed for a reduced price point, but for someone like me, I prefer larger format so I can really examine the imagery.