Child of the Sun


Child of the Sun, also known as the Florida Southern College Architectural District, is a group of buildings designed for the campus of the Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida, United States, by :Category:American architects|American architect Frank Lloyd Wright from 1941 through 1958. The buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and together form the largest collection of buildings by the architect. It was designated a National Historic Landmark on March 2, 2012. On April 18, 2012, the AIA's Florida Chapter ranked it eighth on its list of Florida Architecture: 100 Years. 100 Places.

Design

Frank Lloyd Wright was retained by Florida Southern President Ludd M. Spivey in 1938 to develop a master plan for the expansion and further growth of the college's campus. Spivey gave Wright the chance to plan the campus using ideas about organic integration with the environment that the architect had been developing for some years. As basic design blocks for the campus, Wright adopted a plan based on the idea of orange groves, which have evenly spaced trees forming a grid. For construction, Wright sought the use of textile blocks, which he had developed formally a decade before in his "Textile Block" houses in California. The buildings on the Florida Southern campus could be made of concrete blocks of standard size, whose use would simplify design and construction of the buildings. These blocks would, at least in part, be formed by the college's students using local materials. The basic plan for the campus was based on ideas Wright had conceived as part of his Broadacre City idea of urban planning.

Buildings

The buildings within the District include:
Opened in 2013, the Sharp Family Tourism and Education Center features a Wright-designed Usonian house and the GEICO Gift Shop. The center offers self-guided, docent-led, and group tours of this collection of the architect's work that Wright himself proclaimed to be among his best. It is open from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Gallery