Art News

Florida Campus Restoration Revives Frank Lloyd Wright’s Vision

LAKELAND, FL (AP).- Like any other sunbather, Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Child of the Sun” withered in Florida’s heat, humidity and harsh sunlight. Moisture seeped through the sand-and-cement blocks Wright used to build the chapels, library, planetarium and classroom and administrative buildings of Florida Southern College in the central Florida town of Lakeland, about 50 miles southwest of Orlando. The iron support bars knitting the blocks together rusted and swelled, causing walls to buckle. Some of the “Child of the Sun” structures, constructed between 1939 and 1958, were altered as the college’s needs changed, dimming the sunlight Wright wanted to illuminate his “organic” buildings.