Florida Southern, a campus rich in Wright designs, will launch an architecture program

LAKELAND — Florida Southern College has long been synonymous with architecture.

Containing the world’s most plentiful array of structures designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, America’s most revered architect, the Lakeland campus attracts thousands of visitors every year who ponder such gems as the Annie Pfeiffer Chapel.

Those visitors often ask about the academic architecture program at Florida Southern. Tour hosts must report that the liberal arts college does not offer one.

That will soon change.

With a dazzling flourish, Florida Southern College President Anne Kerr uncorked plans to begin an architecture program during a gathering Thursday night for prominent school boosters. The liberal arts college will launch an undergraduate program in fall 2025, with a graduate program scheduled to follow in 2028, Kerr said.

Kerr, who has announced plans to retire after 20 years at Florida Southern, said that the new program is being funded by an anonymous donor.

Kerr opened Thursday’s banquet with a summary of the college’s architectural heritage and recent additions before adding that she has regularly fielded a troublesome question throughout her reign at the college: Why doesn’t Florida Southern has an architecture school?

“So tonight, I am happy to answer the question in a different way,” Kerr said before sharing the details on the new program.

Appropriately, Kerr revealed the news in the Ordway Building, one of 13 Wright-designed structures on campus. FSC alumni, staff members and supporters assembled for a banquet at tables arranged in the building’s long, interior concourse. The building, abounding with design elements mirrored in other Wright creations on campus, will serve as home to the architecture program, Kerr said.

“So, the question is now answered,” Kerr, wearing her signature red dress, told the audience. “Florida Southern College has a school of architecture, designed to be one of the best in the world. We are greatly blessed that this next stage of educational excellence, and this major step forward is being funded by a generous benefactor who is making a transformational gift to ensure that Florida Southern College makes a profound impact on the architecture profession, and thus in our lives, as we live and work in structures our graduates will design and build.”

Jeff Baker, the college’s historic preservation artist-in-residence, joined Kerr in the presentation.

“I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would ever see this day,” said Baker, whose architecture firm has offices in New York and Virginia. “It’s not every day that we're able to make history. Indeed, it is not every life that is able to make history. Tonight, history is being made.”

Baker has been allied with Florida Southern for 17 years. He has overseen restoration of several Wright landmarks, including the Annie Pfeiffer Chapel and the Miller Planetarium, which the college showcased days before announcing the architecture program. And Baker directed the construction in 2013 of the Usonian House, a small structure derived from Wright’s plans for a faculty housing complex that were never implemented.

Baker has also designed newer buildings on campus that reflect elements of Wright’s distinctive style, among them the France Admissions Center and the Carole and Marcus Weinstein Computer Sciences Center.

Baker said he decided to become an architect as a youth after seeing TV reports about Wright’s work.

“I've shared the curriculum of this program with some of the younger architects in my office, some of whom helped me shape it, who come from all kinds of programs, and they all wish they could go back to school and join us,” Baker said. “This is the program of their dreams.”

Kerr said that students will have opportunities to study in Florence, Italy, and Tokyo, and will participate in internships with leading architectural firms. The program will allow students to work beside industry professionals to gain practical experience as early as their freshman year, she said.

Architecture programs are uncommon at small, liberal arts colleges, though some offer architectural studies within arts or humanities programs. Florida Southern, founded in 1885, has more than 3,300 students and offers more than 70 academic programs.

Kerr called some of the architects in the audience onto the stage, among them Susan Ryder of Robert A.M. Stern Architects in New York; Brad and Ed Lunz of the Lunz Group in Lakeland; Mike Furr and Philip Wegman of Furr, Wegman and Banks in Lakeland; and Tim Hoeft of Straughn Trout in Lakeland.

Preceding them onto the stage was Frank Lloyd Wright himself — as portrayed by Tommy Anderson, a theater performance major bedecked in the late architect’s trademark pork pie hat and cape and wielding a cane.

'We're here to stay': Lakeland's Grace City Church will build new campus on 50-acre site

The banquet tables were decorated with miniature Wright designs, and small bells were placed within reach. At the end of presentation, Kerr invited the guests to join her in ringing those bells to create an aural memory of the historic moment.

The late Ludd Spivey, Florida Southern’s president from 1925 to 1957, commissioned Wright in the 1930s to envision what the architect dubbed the Child of the Sun campus. Following a first visit in 1938, Wright created plans for 18 structures, 13 of which were built through the 1950s.

The catalog includes the original E.T. Roux Library (now known as the Thaddeus G. Buckner Building), Danforth Chapel and the Polk County Science Building. Wright also designed the Esplanade, a series of covered walkways distinguished by angular columns, and the J. Edgar Wall Water Dome, a circular fountain completed in 1948 and renovated to the original conception in 2007.

The National Park Service declared the Florida Southern College Historic District a National Historic Landmark in 2012 for the Wright structures.

“The whole thing makes perfect sense,” Baker said in an interview. “I mean, this is an architectural mecca for people, especially for architecture lovers and Frank Lloyd Wright lovers around the world. So they fly here just to visit this campus. So it makes a lot of sense, and I think it will provide a tremendous amount of inspiration and education in and of itself for aspiring architects.”

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: 'Program of their dreams': Florida Southern adds architecture program