Medieval and Manuscripts

Child of the Sun

Child of the Sun is a collection of buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright at Florida Southern College's (FSC) West Campus in Lakeland, Florida, United States. It contains twelve designs built during Wright's lifetime, including a set of esplanades and the Water Dome fountain. Two other designs were completed posthumously: a music building and a Usonian house within the Sharp Family Tourism and Education Center. The buildings, listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark, together form the largest collection of buildings by Wright at a single location. Wright's FSC buildings share many stylistic details, differing greatly from previous collegiate buildings and older American styles. They incorporate details such as textile block facades, 30-60-90 triangle motifs, low massings, cantilevered upper stories, flat roofs, skylights, and terraces. Wright's original ten designs include the Pfeiffer and Danforth chapels, two administration buildings, three seminar buildings, the Buckner Building (originally a library), the Ordway Industrial Arts Building, and the Polk County Science Building. Wright intended for his esplanades to both physically and visually connect his structures. Wright's buildings adjoin several neo-Georgian buildings constructed during the 1920s and 1930s, along with later buildings designed by Nils Schweizer. FSC president Ludd Spivey sought to construct the campus in a more modernistic style after cofounding the E. Stanley Jones Educational Foundation in 1937. Spivey hired Wright to design the campus in 1938. Although Spivey distanced himself from the Jones Foundation, Wright continued designing new buildings for two decades, eventually drawing up 18 designs. Due to chronic funding shortages, the buildings were constructed at different times, many using student labor. After Wright's death in 1959, construction of his designs largely ceased as other architects were selected to complete the campus. Over the years, his buildings have been modified and renovated; the Sharp Family Center was built in 2013.

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See also

• ▸Armenian cochineal
• ▸Guyanaite
• ▸Church of St Teresa of Avila, Birkdale

Uncatalogued shelf

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