Exterior, image courtesy of FSU

 

Building Name:                                              Annie Pfeiffer Chapel

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Address:                                                         Florida Southern College, Lakeland, FL 33803

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Link to location on Google Maps:               Click here

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Year Built:                                                       1941

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Architect of Record:                                      Frank Lloyd Wright

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Design Architect:                                           same

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General Contractor:                                      Florida Southern College, foremen oversaw construction by students

                                                                        and other trades. Foremen included Robert Wehr and Wes Peters,

                                                                        FLW son-in-law

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Other Contributors:                                      local banker C.W. Palmore oversaw block making

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Noteworthy Architectural Features:            Textile block construction with over 40 unique block shapes, Typical

                                                                        blocks were 36” by 9” by 4” thick, Blocks contain 20 perforations with

                                                                        colored glass inserts, Nearly 1000 seats on 2 levels, 65 feet tall.

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How to Visit:                                                   Sharp Family Tourist and Education Center

                                                                        https://www.flsouthern.edu/frank-lloyd-wright/home.aspx

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Architectural Style:                                        prairie style, FLW textile block, modern

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Related Links:                                                 https://www.flsouthern.edu/home.aspx  

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Description:

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Florida Southern College in Lakeland is Frank Lloyd Wright’s one college campus with nearly a dozen Wright designed buildings and elements, constructed over a 20 year relationship with the school and its president during that time. With this commission Wright displays his ideas for a Florida architectural style, and a democratic environment where science and religion co-exist without historical [collegiate gothic] stylistic references and without bi-lateral campus symmetry. The centerpiece of his vision for this campus and his treatise is the Annie Pfeiffer Chapel. While the seminar buildings were finished before the chapel, the chapel was the first of the campus buildings Wright designed.

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Ludd Spivy was hired as the president of Florida Southern College in 1925, he accepted that position during some tough years financially. Having inherited a campus of two colonial buildings by successful Orlando education architect Frederick Trimble, he had managed to raise enough funds to construct a men’s dormitory, heating plant, athletic field and gymnasium during his first decade at the post...

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Continue reading description in blog article here.