Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida has the largest group of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings on one site in the world. Ludd Spivey, college president from 1925 to 1957, contracted Wright to design and build a number of structures on the FSC campus.  Twelve of the eighteen buildings he planned were constructed between 1938 and 1958.

Frank Lloyd Wright was considered the most uniquely American architect at the time Spivey was working with him at Florida Southern. Wright called his style organic architecture and he firmly rejected the classical style borrowed mainly from Europe.  His approach to architecture was rooted in nature and he was strongly influenced by the elements of structural design and culture of Japan.  Wright was captivated by Japan’s inherent use of simplicity and natural forms in building, landscape, art and textiles. However, expressing the American spirit and culture was one of Wright’s most noteworthy objectives. He preferred to use native materials, such as local stone and rocks and worked with the landscape at hand to create a distinctively American style of architecture.

Wright wrote, “In Organic Architecture then, it is quite possible to consider the building as one thing, its furnishing another and its setting and environment still another.  The Spirit in which these buildings are conceived sees all these together at work as one thing."

He also said, [A building] " is conceived in an organic sense, all ornamentation is conceived as of the very ground plan and is therefore of the very constitution of the structure itself."

Wright was interested in harmony, unity and geometry and these concepts are all apparent in the FSC buildings. Each structure on the Florida Southern campus is unique but all of the buildings are indelibly stamped with the brilliance of Wright.

Wright used the flexibility of concrete to create beauty. He combined it with wood, sand and metal and created cantilevered roofs, variously molded angles and forms, soaring ceilings and glass encrusted walls.

All of the Wright buildings on the campus contain many details, including distinctive use of colored glass and unique furniture made just for the structure.

On the FSC campus Frank Lloyd Wright has created a significant record of twentieth century architecture.

The Wright buildings on the Florida Southern Campus:

Annie Merner Pfeiffer Chapel

Cora Carter Seminar

Charles W. Hawkins Seminar

Isabel Walbridge Seminar

Esplanade

E.T. Roux Library, (now the Thad Buckner Building)

Emile E. Watson Administration Building

Benjamin Fine Administration Building

J. Edgar Wall Waterdome

Industrial Arts Building, (now the Lucius Pond Ordway Building)

William H. Danforth Chapel

Polk County Science Building