Buildings
Florida Southern College Begins Large-Scale Restoration of
Wright Campus
(archrecord.construction.com - 10/10/2006)
By Jennifer
LeClaire
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Click here for slideshow.
All photos © Wayne E.
Koehler |
Frank Lloyd Wright classics are a mainstay
at Florida Southern College. Twelve geometrical structures
stand at this largest single-site collection of his works.
Their exteriors dazzle with colored glass, and daylight floods
their interiors—although budget restrictions have caused
the historic structures to lose their luster.
Now, Florida Southern president Ann
Kerr is leading the charge to restore Wright’s designs,
and even complete some plans the college couldn’t afford
to implement during the school’s original 1939–1958
construction.
“One of the most wonderful aspects
of Wright’s work is his use of indigenous materials.
Here he used sandstone and coquina shells to create cement
blocks to build the facilities, but these porous materials
resulted in water damage in all the buildings,” Kerr
explains. The bricks have been maligned by a slapdash caulking
job to prevent water from seeping into the structures. Modern
adaptations, such as air-conditioning and extra bathroom facilities,
have been unkindly retrofitted atop building shells.
Restoring the facilities to endure Florida’s
harsh weather and introducing amenities without destroying
Wright’s aesthetics are two key challenges outlined in
the master plan to restore the buildings and landscapes. The
Getty Foundation has bestowed the school with a $195,000 Campus
Heritage Grant to complete that outline. Kerr has said that
the restoration work itself may ultimately cost $50 million.
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While government and foundation grants
and private gifts will fund work once the scope is determined,
the college has already received $1.6 million from the state
of Florida to restore Wright’s esplanades as well as
$700,000 in public and private funds to restore the Water
Dome. The esplanades, a 1.5-mile network of concrete walkways
that resemble abstract trees, are cracked with sagging roofs,
and the iron supports are rusted. The Water Dome, designed
as a centerpiece of the campus in 1948, was originally supposed
to shoot water approximately 75 feet into the air to form
a hemispherical, 160-foot-diameter dome of water; anecdotal
evidence suggests the feature never operated properly for
an extended period.
The challenge is balancing Wright’s
design with recent building codes and technologies, says Jeff
Baker, a preservation architect hired to help restore the
two elements. “Wright was so far ahead of his time that
he was often ahead of the technologies of the day. Fifty years
later, the technologies, materials, and systems are catching
up to him.”
For the esplanades, for example, new
expansion joints will “mimic Wright’s expansion
joints in appearance but will outperform the original materials
and assemblies,” while the original surface color will
be restored. With the Water Dome, Baker and two companies
are using computer modeling and mockups to prepare the jets
to flow properly.
Florida Southern is also investing $10
million to hire Robert A.M. Stern, FAIA, to design a new set
of buildings that complement Wright’s original designs.
Stern has said that the buildings, which include a series
of three dormitories that are Y-shape in plan and a humanities
building, will honor Wright’s intentions.
Response to the pending overhaul has
been overwhelmingly positive, according to a representative
of the college. Jose Gelabert-Navia, managing director of
the Miami office of Perkins+Will, says complete restoration
of Florida Southern is paramount to the history of architecture
because “this gives us an idea of what Wright would have
envisioned if he had a chance to design a sustainable city.
His ideas are worth preserving.”
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