Frank
Lloyd
Chapel
for
Wright's
Florida
Annie
M.
Southern
Pfeiffer
College
Modernist Theology and Regional Architecture
M.
SIRY
WesleyanUniversity
rankLloyd Wright'slate careerfloweredin the wake
of a wave of national publicity for his recent work
early in 1938, when he was seventy years old. At this
time, Fallingwater (1934-37) had just been completed, and
the Johnson Wax Company Administration Building
(1936-3 9) was under construction. The entire January 1938
issue of Architectural Forum, designed by Wright, was
devoted to his work, while his popular reputation was
shaped by a feature article in Time of 17 January 1938 that
identified him as "the greatest architect of the 20th century."' The Depression had eased, Wright was resurgent,
and he was clearly seeking the national clientele that would
develop over the last two decades of his life. Among his
patrons was Dr. Ludd M. Spivey, president of Florida
Southern College in Lakeland, whose initial contact with
Wright in April 1938 marked the start of a twenty-plus-year
working relationship and friendship that resulted in
Wright's design of nine realized buildings within a comprehensive plan for the college's new west campus. This site
would come to hold the largest collection of Wright buildings in the world. The campus grew into a partial embodiment of Wright's ideals for an organic architecture in the
spirit of his utopian proposal for Broadacre City, which was
first exhibited publicly in 1935.2
The first and most monumental building that Wright
designed for Florida Southern was a chapel named for its
donor, Annie M. Pfeiffer, which was dedicated on 9 March
1941 after almost three years of design and construction (Fig-
ure 1). The chapel was the first religious structure that
Wright realized after his Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois
(1905-9), and the first of a series of late churches and a synagogue that he built before his death in April 1959.3 The
Pfeiffer Chapel was also related to Wright's realized and
unrealized designs for theaters and auditoriums. Though the
building holds a pivotal position in his career as a public
architect, it has never been closely studied. For Spivey, the
new chapel was the centerpiece of his vision for the college as
a theologically modernist institution. For Wright, the chapel
was to fulfill his ideal of a modern architecture for the United
States whose character derived from its regional authenticity,
as distinct from the current International Style of European
modern architecture. From these agendas arose a building
whose structural system, based on the cantilever, was among
the most artful of Wright's oeuvre. Here he developed the
expressive potential of modern construction for a client who
sought an emblem of institutional aims.
Florida Southern College and Modernist
Theology
Founded as a seminary in 1885 by the Florida Methodist
Conference, which still owns it, Southern College acquired
what became its permanent campus in Lakeland in 1921.
The original seventy-eight-acre tract extended south along
a considerable slope overlooking Lake Hollingsworth,
named for the college's first president, Joshua
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JOSEPH
Hollingsworth. Located thirty-two miles east of Tampa,
Lakeland was the center of the state's citrus industry, set
amid hundreds of lakes. Florida Southern claimed to be the
only college in the United States that had a citrus grove as
a campus. The grove, valued as an agricultural property at
$100,000 in 1940, was leased to private operators who
annually picked large quantities of oranges and grapefruit
from its trees. When the college moved to Lakeland in
1922, the trustees commissioned Orlando architect E H.
Trimble to design a master plan for the campus, which is
recorded in a model (Figure 2). The scheme shows a domed
central library dominating the upland (north) side of the
site and flanked by dormitory quadrangles, with a sloping
green cleared of trees south to the lake. A steepled chapel is
shown in the site's northwest corner. Versions of five buildings in this plan were completed on the east part of the site
in a neo-Georgian style before Wright's involvement. The
first was a three-story red brick women's dormitory opened
in 1922 (renamed Joseph-Reynolds Hall in 1937), facing
west onto the grove (see Figure 2, a). Wright's chapel would
stand directly west of this structure (see Figure 2, b). Full
accreditation coincided with the institution's golden jubilee
in 1935, when it was renamed Florida Southern College.4
Before becoming Wright's client, Spivey had worked
for thirteen years since his election as president in 1925 to
erase the college's large debt, build an endowment, and add
new structures. He accomplished these formidable tasks following the collapse of Florida's boom in land speculation in
1927 and the subsequent national depression. Born in
Alabama in 1886, Spivey had served as an ordained
Methodist minister before completing divinity studies at the
University of Chicago in 1922. There he was deeply influenced by the philosophy of John Dewey (1859-1952), to
which he frequently referred in his own writings and talks
at Florida Southern. Dewey had left Chicago in 1904, yet
his followers in philosophy, religion, and related fields were
Spivey's mentors, and Dewey himself later developed a personal friendship with Spivey.s
FRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT'S
ANNIE
M. PFEIFFER
CHAPEL
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Figure 1 FrankLloydWright,Annie M. Pfeiffer Chapel, FloridaSouthern College, Lakeland,1938-41; partiallyrebuilt 1944-45; remodeled
1957-67. View from the southeast
N
e
ar
ofthamps
1
Figure 2 F. H. Trimble,model of campus plan for FloridaSouthern College, 1922, showing (a) Joseph-Reynolds Hall(1922), two hundredyards
west of which would be the site of (b) Pfeiffer Chapel. The buildingon that site in the model was among those not realized. Other structures
anticipated in this plan and erected in sympathy with it before Wright'sinvolvement were (c) the social hall (1922; renamed Edge Hall, 1935); (d)
AllanSpivey Hall(1936-37), a dormitoryand classroom building(not linkedto Joseph-Reynolds Hallas shown in this model); (e) Ruel B. Gilbert
Gymnasium (1937); and (f) the president's home (1937). Lake Hollingsworthis to the south.
Dewey's central philosophical creed of instrumentalism emphasizedthe value of experiencein educationandin
art. His stress on a modern pragmatismas a guide for progressive schooling was central to Spivey'svision of Florida
Southern'smission, where students were to learn religious
precepts by incorporating them into their daily lives on
campus.Like Dewey, Spiveyopposedthe idea of studentsas
"spectators"who gained knowledge by assimilatinginformation about the present and the past. In place of this tradition, Spivey believed that education should have an
experientialcomponent. As he had done with earliercampus structures,Spiveywould realizethis ideal in the expansion of Florida Southern College by having students work
for their tuition by aidingin the buildings'construction.He
also subscribedto Dewey'sidea of "artas experience,"which
held that art was not a field apart from living, but rather
that all human activityhad an artisticcomponent, and that
all work completedwell or skillfullyproducedaestheticsatisfaction. From this perspective,the built environment of
Florida Southern'scampus,in both its creation and its use,
would be an encompassingexperiencethatwould assiststudents in living well together. Spivey thus proposed to realize FloridaSouthern'straditionalaim of religiousformation
by implementing Dewey's modern philosophy in educational and architecturalterms. For Spivey, as for Dewey,
such progressiveeducationwas essential for a democracy.6
Spivey's three years of study at the University of
500
JSAH
/ 63:4,
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2004
Chicago fell within the longer forty-year period of that
institution's early architectural development as a neoGothic campus,from its founding in 1892 until the Great
Depression in 1932. Wright was also familiar with
Chicago's campus, near which he had built the Frederick
Robie House (1908-10), the Midway Gardens (1911-14),
and other houses. From its beginning, the university had
planned a central chapel. Bond Chapel, designed by
Coolidge andHodgdon, was realizedin 1926, connectingto
the same architects' Swift Hall, which was to house the
divinity school, then focused on studies in the New TestaIn 1918, when Spivey
ment and EarlyChristianliterature.7'
studied at this school, BertramGrosvenorGoodhue began
designs for a modern Gothic chapel for the whole university, which was completed after his death in 1924 by his
associates Mayers, Murray, and Phillip. Spivey saw the
power of John D. Rockefeller'sfinal gift of $10,000,000
given in 1910 to build up the institution.A lifelong Baptist,
Rockefellerhad stipulatedthat at least $1.5 million of this
gift be used to erect and furnisha universitychapel,whose
name was changed to RockefellerChapel after his death in
1937 (Figure 3). The chapel was intentionally medieval in
construction.Its buttressingwalls of stone, backedby brick,
supported interior stone vaults, so that, as Goodhue said,
"its buttresses'butt.'"8At their base, the tower'swalls were
eight feet thick,with foundationsgoing down eighty feet to
bedrock. Structural steel was used for roof trusses, bal-
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The first architect's model of th Lakeland campus, 1922.
Figure 3 BertramGrosvenor Goodhue, succeeded by Mayers,
Murray,and Phillip,John D. Rockefeller Chapel, Universityof Chicago,
designed and built 1918-27. View from the southwest, showing
masonry pier buttresses along the sides for nave vaulting of stone
ported Spivey'sliberal approach,and Spivey kept his position, much to the dismay of the conference'sand the college's conservatives.10From then on, although he did face
furthercontroversy,Spivey openly directedFlorida Southern's life toward an ideal of religious modernity, with
Dewey's philosophy as a guide. The college, now publicly
modernistin its theology,would soon be housed in modern
buildingsdesigned by FrankLloyd Wright.
Spivey's Original Vision: The E. Stanley Jones
Educational Foundation
Spivey'svictoryin the controversyof 1935 strengthenedhis
handfor fundraisingand building.In summer1936, he traveled to Europe for the first time, touring the Soviet Union,
Germany,and other countries.He recalledthat his view of
Florida Southern's architecturalfuture changed when he
was visiting Geneva, then home of the League of Nations,
and saw the ReformationMonument of 1909-17 from his
hotel balcony.This 100-meterwall of stone featuredlargerFRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT'S
ANNIE
M. PFEIFFER
CHAPEL
501
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conies, and the tower's internal structure, but not for the
main vaulting. Although the relative planarity of the
stoneworkand the programof symbolicimages markedthe
chapel as modern, it was as close to a medievalGothic construction as then existed in the United States.
Wright's Pfeiffer Chapel at Florida Southern would
have a differentrelationshipto the Gothic tradition.When
Spivey became president of Florida Southern in 1925, he
began to lead the institution away from the conservative
theology long associatedwith the Gothic Revival.Although
medievalin its architecturalstyle, the Universityof Chicago
during Spivey'stenurewas the intellectualcenter of a modernist movement in AmericanProtestant theology, which
emphasized the compatibility of religious and scientific
knowledge, and posited the view that Christianitywas the
productof its own historicalandsocial evolutionaryprocess.
Such a modernist view clashed with Biblical fundamentalism. The leader of the modernistswas Spivey'smentor, Dr.
ShirleyJackson Case (1872-1947), the dean of Chicago's
divinity school, whom Spivey invited to teach at Florida
Southern in 1938.9Wright'smodern architecture,with its
emphasison structuralinnovationand authenticityrelative
to the naturalhistory of a region, signified this modernist
theological outlook, in contrastto the college's earlierconventional neo-Georgian architectureof the 1920s. In this
way, Pfeiffer Chapel clearly equated an architecturalstyle
with a religious ideology.
The FloridaMethodist Conferencehad providedmost
of the financialsupportthathad nurturedthe college, whose
teachings, even though it was no longer a seminary,were
expectedto conform to the conference'stheology as determined by its bishops.No Methodistministerordainedin the
FloridaMethodist Conferencewas to preachreligious doctrine that went against the episcopallyapprovedstandard.
Given thathis educationwas influencedby Dewey and Case,
Spivey'sintellectual horizons were distant from those of
many of his regional colleagues. Their differences culminated in a public controversyof 1935. Spivey,who taught
and preachedat the college, publiclyespousedthe idea that
the biblicalprophecy of the Second Coming of Christ was
not necessarilyto be interpretedliterally.This was in direct
contradictionto officialMethodist teaching at the time. In
general, Spivey earned a reputationas a theological "modernist"in that he took a criticalview of biblical texts, and
advocatedthe study of social psychologyand the education
of pastorsas psychiatristsfor life in moderntimes. His opponents, including some of his own faculty, called Spivey's
actionsinto question, and demandedthat he be removedas
presidentof the conference'scollege. However,the bishopof
the FloridaMethodist Conference, Rev.John Moore, sup-
502
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2004
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The film andrelatedpublicationsillustrateddesignsfor
than-life statues and reliefs of major thinkers and leaders
who had advancedCalvinistideals.Spiveyrecalledthat "this the building by the Methodist architectL. Alex Hatton of
monument suggestedto me to returnhome as quickas pos- Bartow,Florida(Figure 4). Drawings and a model showed
sible and do something extraordinaryhere in America.""11 a cruciformbuildingwith four equalwings extendingfrom
Spivey'svision for the campus'sarchitectureparalleledhis a centraltoweredrotunda.The plan shows the chapelat the
expectationsof his institution'sfuturenationalimportance. end of a main axis opposite the entrance, past the central
Returningfrom Europeon the Queen Mary,he met Rev.E. rotunda. Wings contained administrativeoffices, a library,
Stanley Jones (1884-1973), who was returning from a and classrooms for biology, chemistry, home economics,
twenty-four-yearmission to India. At that time, Jones was physics, and astronomy.An octagonal structurefor devothe best-known author and preacher among American tions stood beyond a sunken garden. Allegorical statues
Methodists. In 1936-37, he spoke about his missionary showing an enteringand a graduatingstudentwere to stand
work to packed auditoriums in twenty-eight American in front of the entranceportico and beyond the chapelapse.
cities. During the Christmas holidays of 1936, Spivey Spivey imagined "an ideal site just off the present caminvited Jones to rest at Florida Southern. There he conpus. ... On a large open plot of ground overlookingLake
vincedJones that this institutionwas the ideal placefor real- Hollingsworth there is ample space with a beautifulbackizing Jones's program "to give spiritual teachings their ground of trees."This site became that of Wright'schapel.
properplace in the schools of America,"where modern sci- Hatton's design was to be "of brickso as to be harmonious
entific and religious education were to find a harmonious with the other college buildings." Spivey said to Jones:
balance. In 1937, Jones permitted Spivey to create the E. "Yourplan for a buildingthat will concentrateand symbolStanleyJonesEducationalFoundationat FloridaSouthern, ize religiousteachingsat FloridaSouthernis tremendously
aiming to raise $1,000,000 for endowment and new build- appealing to me. It will serve to remind the students of
FloridaSouthernandI hope the studentsof all Americathat
ings to signify the foundation'saims.12
In the short film FloridaSouthernCollege:InsuringOur the ideal education is an equal blending of religious, culDestiny, Spivey and Jones presented their vision of "an tural, and scientificknowledge.""s
Jones'sfundraisingproceededapacein 1937-38, begininspiringmonument to man'seffort to harmonizethe intellectual and the spiritual."As Jones narratedto their audi- ning in Lakelandand then moving to other majorFlorida
ence of potential donors: "I should like to see upon my cities, where the question of the architectureand the archireturnto Americaa buildingon your beautifulcampusthat tect repeatedlyarose. One of Spivey'sclose associateslater
would indelibly impresson the minds of the students,pro- recalled:"The general feeling of many people was that, if
the college was really going to honor so unique and outfessors, and visitors in symbolic form what this college
stands for and is really trying to accomplish.To symbolize standing a leader as E. StanleyJones, the buildingsassociwhat I am talking about I would suggest a building be cre- ated with his name should likewise be unique and
ated on your campusdedicatedto the interpretationof the outstanding."16Colleagues who knew of Wright's work
spiritualvalues of a college education."This Hall of Reli- urged Spivey to consider him, and on 11 April Spivey
gion would house departmentsdevotedto comparativereli- telegrammed the architect: "Desire conference with you
gions and to the history and contemporaryapplicationof concerning plans for great education temple in Florida.""17
Christianityto world and local problems,as well as a shrine At this point, Spiveywas still likely referringto the idea of
for personal devotions. One of the building's four wings the multifunctionalbuildingfor the E. StanleyJonesFounwould house a chapel,which this Methodist college did not dation. On 21 April 1938, Spiveyvisited Wright at Taliesin,
yet have. The chapel "unit"was to be built first. Although where they discussed the project, with the understanding
rooted in Methodist culture,Jones's foundationwas "con- that Spiveydid not yet have the funds in hand to realizehis
ceived as a vast project that will transcenddenominational vision. Spiveyrecalled:"I told [Wright]that I wantedto do
barriers . . . planned as a shrine for American Protes- something very extraordinary.Well, he wasn't enthusiastic
In this spirit, an endowment was to support a about it because as you know he never did anythingin the
tantism."'13
"preachingmission" each winter at the college chapel. As field of architectureunless he carriedon a lot of research.
Jones said:"Distinguishedministersfrom all denominations But he said 'I'll come down."'18For three days, 9-11 May,
will be invitedhere to preach.To this missionwill be invited Wright visited Lakeland,where he "walkedslowly about
all the ministers of Florida as well as all the laymen who the college campus, from time to time letting the Florida
careto attend."'14
Spiveyrecalled
Wright'slater chapelwas to accommodate sand trickle through his delicate fingers."'19
this mission.
that Wright "hadme drive him all over the countryto see
Figure 4 L. Alex Hatton, unbuilt
design for E. Stanley Jones
EducationalFoundationbuilding
at FloridaSouthern College
Architet's Conc ption
ofthe
(projectedfor the same site as
Wright'slater chapel), with neoGeorgiancupola and plan of
main floor with chapel "unit"
i
.StanleyJones
0Jnouanon
Educationnal
opposite entrance
JL
the variouspartsof Lakelandand the county."20
At the end
of this visit, Wright acceptedthe job becauseof his response
to both the institution and the site, which he stated "could
not be found any place else on earth."21
To raise funds, Spivey askedWright to speakat a dinin
ner
Lakeland. In his speech to a large audience that
included a number of Florida architects, which Spivey
arrangedto have broadcaston radio, Wright sounded his
familiarthemes. He had long looked askanceat academic
education,but now for the first time consented to build for
a college, saying "I love the religious spirit in an institution." He continued: "This is a great opportunity here
becauseyou have a beautifulpiece of ground. . . . I shall be
very proud indeed to give the Foundation fresh form, a
Floridaform. No real Floridaform has yet been produced.
Most of you here have simplybuilt as you built backhome."
Echoing his mentor, Louis Sullivan,Wright stressed:"We
do not need a French chateaufor a firehouse nor a Greek
temple for a bank."CriticizingHatton'sproject,he asserted:
"I believe we are now readyfor a cultureof our own, something indigenous to America. We have the 57 varieties in
architecture.All my life I have longed for something we in
America could call our own.""22Wright "had no idea what
[the buildings]would be like, but he promised they would
fit into the land, the life and the spirit of Florida."Spivey
"wantedthe construction to be an expressionof the ideals
of the institution when he went to Wright."He said to his
architect:"Wehave the ideals,we know what we are trying
to do, but we need a symbol for those ideals lest they be
lost." Wright told him: "This is the first time I ever have
been absolutely idealisticallyinterested in a college. Here
is going to be the crowning event of my career,a shrine to
both idealism and religion."23
Wright's Campus Plan as Regionalist Manifesto
Wright's campus design took shape in the late summer of
1938, after he receivedthe plot plans of the site. In August,
he wrote:"Dr. Spiveyis waitingto see his preliminaries.We
are at them earlyand late but they will be late becauseI am
trying to duly put myself into them."24Because Wright
intended to consolidate the many functions in Hatton's
building, initially Spivey envisioned a single multipurpose
structure.He anticipatedthat "thebuilding,with a series of
courts and gardens, will extend for two blocks across the
campus to Lake Hollingsworth."25Like European modernist interwararchitecture,Wright'splan distendedwhat
he called the "units,"or wings, of Hatton'sstructureinto a
group of functionallyandvolumetricallydiscretebuildings,
describedas "units"of the overallplan. Wright was also to
plan the landscaping.A bird's-eyeview from the northwest
shows differentlyshaped structuresfor differentfunctions,
all connectedby coveredwalkwaysor esplanades(Figure5).
Writing to Spivey on 20 September, Wright explained:
"The general plan is a pattern of terracesand arborsconnecting the various buildings-a free pattern, in itself the
most importantsingle featureof the design, I think. ... The
reflex enters into architecture in these plans for Florida
FRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT'S
ANNIE
M. PFEIFFER
CHAPEL
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tvp
Southern as againstthe regimentationcharacteristicof the
classic or Gothic architecture which have been a college
habit in America. A spiritual catharsisin design, I should
say, and a structuralexample of the freedom needed very
much at this time in our national life."26
The "reflex"to which Wright referredwas the plan's
thirty- and sixty-degreeangles for nonorthogonalwalkways
and buildings,with which he had experimentedin site plans
since the mid-1920s (Figure 6). Bounded on the west (see
Figure5, foreground)by SouthJohnsonAvenue,the campus
sloped down to LakeHollingsworthon the south. Entering
the campusnearthe centerof the west side,north of a model
theater (never built), one would walk to the circular and
polygonallibrary(built 1941-45 as the originalE. T. Roux
Library), then turn thirty degrees southeast toward the
chapel, which would be the new campus'scenter. Wright
sited the chapel on axis west of the neo-Georgian JosephReynoldsandAlan Spiveyhalls,which he "subordinatedand
set to one side of the scheme. Somedaythey may be altered
andproperlyrelatedto the generalscheme."The new structurescollectivelywere "onecomfortgiving,protective,sympathetic building, divided into special buildings for special
activities.... Each separatebuilding finds a better way of
doing the thing to be done in it thanhas been seen elsewhere
as you will see. Each building is individualin character-504
JSAH
/ 63:4,
DECEMBER
2004
practicalin effect-yet contributing its share to an occult
For
symmetry-delightfully informaland easyas a whole.""27
Wright, such an "occult symmetry"signified the spiritual
integrationof buildingsand their landscapes.
Among Wright'searlierdesigns, one recent precedent
for Florida Southern College was his largely unbuilt plan
of 1932 for additions to his first institutionalbuilding, the
Hillside Home School (1901-2) near his own home, Taliesin, in Wisconsin, which Spivey admired.28Founded by
his maternal aunts, Jane and Ellen Lloyd Jones, on the
model of Welsh Unitarian academies, the Hillside Home
School had become nondenominationaland coeducational,
and with emphasis on liberal ideas in education and daily
life. The school was sited on the farm that the aunts had
inherited from their parents, who had first settled in the
area.Wright wrote:"The two sisterswere disciplesofJohn
Dewey by way of Francis Parker under whom they once
taught school."29 In Wright's view, "the unique home-
school founded on democratic non-sectarian lines had
FrancisParkerfor patron saint. And FrancisParkerbowed
his head to John Dewey. Liberal faith-liberal thought,
teaching liberality and trying to live it."30 For Parker and
Dewey, the ideal school was a miniaturedemocratic community, or embryonic society, in which children's group
activitiesand problem-solvingwere a continuationof home
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Figure 5 Wright,campus plan for FloridaSouthern College, Lakeland,bird's-eyeview from the northwest, 1938
lowship complex and Florida Southern campus were set
into agricultural sites: Taliesin on the Lloyd Jones's tilled
fields, and Florida Southern in its citrus groves. Both plans
integrate buildings into a terraced or sloping landscape, and
connect them by covered walkways that divide and contain
segments of space. In its stone walls and hipped roofs, Taliesin's architecture is more uniform, whereas the college's
structures, with their contrasting geometries and mostly flat
roofs, reflect the European modern movement. In both
sites, the structural rhythm of walkway piers corresponds
to the unit dimensions used in the buildings. In both, structures and walkways are either orthogonal or set at thirtyand sixty-degree reflex angles.
Perhaps most important, in each design, the environment was to signify the ideals of the school, whose students
would literally build their community. As Wright said of
1LILT
IJJ.1-1?
tt
JL
t-A_,
I1"A
9
f
WfCVlt
Clio
"71?-LJLL,
Figure 6 Wright,campus plan for FloridaSouthern College, Lakeland,1938, showing projected buildings. Centralchapel is on axis west of
college's earlierneo-Georgian buildings, not shown. Other realized buildingswere for manual training,three seminar buildingson the north,
administration,library,and laboratories,includinga planetarium.Unbuiltwere the theater, studios, museum, seminar buildings,and kindergarten
along the west (bottom) side, the outdoor theater and swimming pool on Lake Hollingsworth,and the music building,faculty club, and seminar
buildings near the astronomy building.
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S ANNIE M. PFEIFFER CHAPEL
505
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life.31"This ideal paralleled Spivey's vision of collegiate education at Florida Southern, where cooperative living and
educational activities were the guiding theme of campus life.
In May 1915, before Wright's aunts' deaths in 1917 and
1918, they had transferred control of the school's buildings
and grounds to Wright, who promised that he "would see
their educational work go on at beloved Hillside on the site
of the pioneer homestead."32 Beginning in 1928, Wright
developed plans to renovate and expand the 1901-2 school
buildings. They eventually housed the Taliesin Fellowship,
which he and his wife, Olgivanna, organized in 1932 as a
community that "still has the background of the liberal education established by the Lloyd Jones sisters.""33
The bird'sview
of
the
from
1932
shows
a set of
eye
project
(Figure 7)
new structures, of which only the drafting room to the
north of the original school was built. Both the Taliesin Fel-
Figure 7 Wright,Taliesin
Fellowship complex, Spring
Green, Wisconsin, 1932. Aerial
perspective looking north
shows originalHillsideHome
School buildingsof 1901-2,
with draftingroom built
behind, and additional
unrealizedstructures
Mr.Wright'splans for the Foundationbuildingsare expressive of
the ideals that are the spiritualessence of this entire educational
undertaking.He has given superb interpretationto the ideals of
FloridaSouthern College and E. Stanley Jones. These buildings
will be shrines of art, not just mere buildings. They will surely
affect the inner self of every individualwho enters them. They
will result in an aesthetic quickening. . . . In creating the Foundation buildingsto be erected in a setting of citrus trees, palms,
506
JSAH
/ 63:4,
DECEMBER
2004
and flowers, on a hill overlooking a lake, he seized the finest
opportunityof his life to stress the illimitable,buoyantfreshness
of nature. He has skillfullyarranged to bring much of the outdoor beauty of Floridainto the interiorof the buildings. He has
designed each structure so that it will appear to grow out of the
ground in harmonious relationshipwith vibrantnature.37
Inspired intellectually by Dewey, Spivey commissioned
Wright to create a campusplan that was in many ways the
opposite of that of the University of Chicago. Like Florida
Southernin Lakeland,the Universityof Chicago comprised
a distinct landscapeas the setting for a stylisticallyuniform
architecture.Yet at Chicago, the collegiate Gothic bespoke
the conservativeintellectual style of a wealthy urbaninstitution. At Florida Southern, in then rural Lakeland,with
almost all of its studentson financialaid, Wright'sarchitecture would foster a progressiveideal of higher education.
Chicago'srectilinearcampushad similarlyshapedbuildings
housing differentfunctions,bounding quadrangularblocks
and courts. Florida Southern's diagonal esplanades pass
throughthe campusto connect buildingswith variedshapes
for different functions. Chicago had modeled itself on
medieval Oxford in contrast to the modern city; Florida
Southernwas to be future-orientedand regionallyspecific.
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Taliesin: "The Fellowship buildings practicing what the Fellowship preaches are simple expression of indigenous architecture and are being constructed by the Fellowship
itself."34As Wright admired the ideals of Florida Southern,
Spivey told Wright that he was "profoundly impressed by
what you are doing for the young men and young women
you have in your fellowship.""35Wright recalled that Spivey
had initially said that he "wanted me as much for my philosophy as for my architecture. I assured him they were
inseparable."36Among Wright's ideas, the Taliesin Fellowship corresponded to Spivey's use of student labor to build
Florida Southern, as a demonstration of Dewey's ideal of
learning by doing. Also, the campus's architecture would
convey institutional values, embodying Dewey's idea of art
as experience. Spivey wrote:
Figure 8 Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe office,
IllinoisInstitute of
Technology, Chicago.
Photomontage aerial
view showing model
within Near South
Side, 1940
planned according to a twenty-four-foot module based on
anticipated classroom and laboratory sizes. As Mies developed the design, he defined the buildings as almost uniformly rectangular volumes of steel, glass, and brick, with
flat roofs parallel to the tablelike plane of the site. Though
part of an integrated whole, each major programmatic element was to be freestanding, with no covered connectors.
Both Wright and Mies sought to create architecturally
and spatially unified modern campuses. Yet Wright's emphasis on the landscape elements as integral with the structures,
his use of orthogonal and reflex angles, the variety of his
building shapes, and the element of connective walkways all
served to distance Florida Southern from the European
modern movement's tradition of spatial and institutional
planning, which Mies's campus epitomized. Wright's proposed constructive system of textile-block walls and reinforced-concrete spans also contrasted with Mies's vocabulary
at IIT of the steel frame infilled with glass or brick. For
Mies, space was the continuous entity of the design, whereas
Wright, although he, too, wrote of architecture in spatial
terms, proposed a campus wherein the multiunit building
was conceptually continuous. His Florida Southern was not
to be historically imitative, like the University of Chicago.
Yet Wright's plan represented his vision for a modern AmerFRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT'S
ANNIE
M. PFEIFFER
CHAPEL
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Wright claimed to have "planned the buildings as a harmonious whole expressive of the spirit of the college." He said:
"The buildings will have no touch of 'grandomania,'
explaining that each unit will be related to the remainder in
such a way that it will be impossible to judge the whole project by one building. There is much spaciousness and vista
in the planning, but very little waste space. They will make
much of association with the ground and thorough-going
harmony, each to each and each to all. All the buildings,
though modest in proportion are unique in pattern, especially so in adaptation to the work to be done in them."38
The other American college campus largely designed
anew in this period was the Armour Institute of Technology,
later renamed the Illinois Institute of Technology, on
Chicago's South Side. The architectural firm Holabird and
Root had developed a plan for the forty-acre urban site in
1937, before the appointment of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
to head the institute's Department of Architecture later that
year. Mies's plan for the South Side campus took shape starting in early 1939 (Figure 8). Mies had direct contact with
Wright from late 1937, but it is not known that Mies in
designing IIT either knew of or was responding to Wright's
1938 plan for Florida Southern. In Mies's scheme, continuous space predominated, with buildings and outdoor areas
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ican architecture that stressed individual variation and
Spivey recalled that when ground was broken in May
in
interest
modern
from
Mies's
distinct
1938, he still had no funds.43 The chapel's principal donor
regional specificity,
was
AnnieM. Pfeifferof New YorkCity (1859-1946),wife of
and
structural
a
universal
ideal
of
architecture as
spatial
form. Wright'scampusfor Florida Southernthus exempli- pharmaceuticalmanufacturerHenry Pfeiffer (1857-1939).
fied the polemic againsta uniformmodernarchitecturethat Both wereinternationalMethodistphilanthropists.Through
had characterizedhis work since the International Style's friendsin Lakelandand at FloridaSouthern,Annie Pfeiffer
exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in New Yorkin became acquaintedwith the E. StanleyJones Foundation.
1932. If Mies's plan for IIT embodied that style in the
Spiveylater said that when he met her in New Yorkin late
United States,then Wright calledhis planfor FloridaSouth- May 1938 to describethe projectfor the chapel,"Ididn'ttell
her it wasdesignedby Mr.Wright,becauseI didn'tknowher
ern "the first trulyAmericancollege."'39
Pfeifferreportedlyagreedto makeher gift of
Insteadof looking to the traditionof ideas represented background."44
by Mies's IIT, Wright was drawn to the campus of the $50,000 on the condition that she see plans, though it is
CranbrookAcademyof Art in BloomfieldHills, Michigan, unknownif she did or not.45As the chapelneared compledesigned in 1924-25 by Eliel Saarinenand opened in 1932. tion, Spiveywrote to her that "thereis nothing like it in the
Cranbrook'sintegrationof architectureand gardenswould world," as if its unconventional form would appeal to its
have appealedto Wright, who had visited severaltimes and donor as a virtue.46With Pfeiffer'sgift, excavationfor the
foundationsbegan in earlyNovember 1938, afterWright's
would return in October 1938. Cranbrook was likely to
have been one source for his thinking about the Hillside initial planshad reachedSpivey.
As in Hatton'sneo-Georgian design envisionedfor the
Home School and the Taliesin Fellowship, also begun in
1932. On 27 August 1938, he wrote to sculptorCarlMilles, same site, the most prominent feature of Wright's chapel
then in residenceat Cranbrook,about FloridaSouthern:"I would be its loftiness.Within the site plan, the chapelis the
have only the general scheme on the drawing boards but only structurewith a markedlyverticalform, dominatedby
the good Dr. Spivey,President,is anxiousthat I make some its centrallanterntower,which a renderingof August 1938
disposition of the matter. So-could you come to Taliesin shows as taller and more elaboratethan was actuallybuilt
on a weekend soon with the Saarinens-we would be glad (Figure 9). A fundraisingpamphletof 1939 includeda verto see them too. We could put you all up overnights [sic] sion of this perspective and noted that Wright's building
and see what ideas concerning the subjectappear."Wright "willriserapidlyfromits foundationupwardtowardits specasked Milles to design fountain and figural sculpturesfor ified height of eighty-five feet. As rapidly as the artistic
the Jones Foundation at Florida Southern, but they were blocksfor its wall are produced,it will begin to tower above
the citrus trees of the sixty-two-acrecampus,and proceed
not executed.40
upward to overlook all of Lakeland and much of the surroundingcountryside."Spiveyhad firstenvisioneda carillon
The Original Design and Construction
as a structureseparatefrom the chapel. In Hatton'sproject,
of the Pfeiffer Chapel, 1938-41
the central tower would contain chimes, while the chapel
As partially built, Mies's campus did ultimately include a would be in the rearwing. Wright proposedthat his central
chapel, whose overall cubic form in steel, brick, and glass lantern tower serve as a carillon, with eighteen spherical
made it minimallydifferentfrom the surroundingacademic gongs. These were "musicalchimes to be playedat sunrise
buildings. By contrast, Wright's chapel was to be figura- and sunsetand on specialoccasions."The recurrentidea of
tively distinctfrom all the other structuresat FloridaSouth- the carillonwas probablyderived from the renowned Bok
ern. When completed in 1941, it replaced a popular Singing Tower near Lake Wales, thirty miles southeast of
outdoor chapel whose roof was a wire frame covered with Lakeland,dedicatedin February1929, whichWrightapparSpanish moss.41Spivey presented Wright's new chapel as ently knew.Famed for its carillonand set amid the Mounthe "theme building"of the E. StanleyJones Educational tain Lake Sanctuary of lakes, trees, and gardens, the
Foundation, with Jones himself laying the cornerstone on structurewasbuiltlargelyof a golden-tintedstone composed
26 November 1938. Wright labeled the building a "chapel of coquinashell and sand.Similarlyseekingto createspecifauditorium,"capableof seating 1,000 for collegiate convo- ically Floridaforms, Wright plannedfor "abeautifulhemications. This term followed Methodist usage from the late cycle of flowersthatwill be developedin frontof the chapel,"
and for flowersand vines in the tower'sconcrete boxes and
nineteenth century, when "auditorium"referred to the
entireworshipspacewithin earshotof the pulpit, as distinct iron trellises.Around the chapel'sbase, "eachpromenade,
known as a stoa, will be coveredwith growingflowers."47
from the "sanctuary"near a front altar.42
Among survivingdrawingsfor the chapel, one undated
sheet shows a preliminarydesign for a half main floor and
half balcony plan based on the campus'ssix-foot-square
module,with notationsin Wright'shandwriting(Figure10).
The cruciform plan is rectangular,with squared east and
west ends, instead of the angled prows that were built. The
section at the top of the drawing shows the central tower
above a skylit ceiling. Unlike the built chapel, the central
skylight's angled planes extend those of a gabled ceiling,
which cants upward at a thirty-degree angle, echoing the
site plan. This angle is repeated in the five concrete "bow
ties"in the tower (see Figure 10, a) above the skylight'seast
and west ends. The tower extends verticallythe site plan's
reflexgeometry,which would dominatethe built chapel.In
the plan's center, Wright wrote "caryo", a variant of
"karyo,"meaning cell nucleus or kernel, as if he conceived
the design in terms of an organicmetaphor,with the tower
as a kind of blossom, like the word "Florida."
The spatiallycompactplanfocusedon the pulpitrecalls
Wright'sUnity Temple of 1905-9, his majorearlierchurch
building, designed for Unitarian Universalist worship. As
for these liberaltraditions,so for the Methodists, a Gothic-
style church plan, with a long nave and deep chancel suggesting processionalritualand priestlyhierarchy,was liturgicallyand symbolicallyinappropriate.Such a basilicanplan
was lackingin mutualvisibilityand acoustics,with the pulpit too far removed from the people. As built, the chapel's
"seatingis so arrangedthat no one in the audienceis more
than fifty feet away from the rostrum and everyone has a
As Wright said in 1938: "The
directview of the speaker."48
most spirited and spiritual
will
be
the
perhaps
chapel
of
all
the
expression
buildings.It will be free from the drawbacksof heavy stone masonry.After all, a chapel building is
a thing of the spirit and for the spirit, and best serves its
purposewhen the body is comfortable,which it never was
in Gothic architecture."49
Another preliminary drawing shows the basic cruciform balcony plan on a modular grid, now overlaid with
tracesof thirty-degreereflexangles that define the chapel's
east and west axial"prows"(Figure 11). This development
of the earlier scheme recalls Wright'sunbuilt plan for the
1,000-seat New Theater at Woodstock, New York(1931),
which he designed almost entirely with reflex angles (Figure 12). There three seating sections focus on a projecting
FRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT'S
ANNIE
M. PFEIFFER
CHAPEL
509
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Figure 9 Wright,perspective of Pfeiffer Chapel from the northwest, dated 23 August 1938, showing central lanterntower higher than ultimately
built, with tiered "bow ties" in tower end walls
frontal stage, analogous to the chapel's rostrum. The similarity of this plan with that of the Pfeiffer Chapel calls to
mind the chapel's function as the college's auditorium.s0
The drawing indicates that the chapel's rectangular lateral
arms still contain seating, flanked by the corner staircases
reoriented north-south as in the built chapel. Four six-footsquare structural columns are located close to where they
were later placed. Above the plan, the west elevation shows
the lantern tower, with its bow ties and their reflex geometry. On the right side of the sheet, the chapel's south elevation shows the lantern tower with unplastered cast block
courses like the lower walls. Yet in the end, sprayed-on plaster, or gunnite, was applied to cover the tower walls' imperfectly finished blocks so as not to waste them (see Figure
1).51 Both elevations show a five-tier tower, with crowning
trellises to support vines.
A sketch to the right of the south elevation in Figure 11
shows a miniature church plan with a square crossing bay,
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corner piers, squaredtranseptsand nave, and apsidialchoir,
with traces of a longer nave below. This minute sketched
plan recallsthat of a traditionalchurchlike Henry Hobson
Richardson'sTrinity Church in Boston (1872-77; Figure
13), and perhapsits Romanesqueantecedents.Wright later
wrote of Richardsonas "the grand exteriorist,"meaning a
designer who thought in terms of exterior massing and
detail, rather than the three-dimensional interweaving of
structureand space that Wright saw as a central virtue of
his own works within the tradition of modern architecture.52But in TrinityChurch,as in its Romanesquesources,
there is a clearrelationshipbetween the interiorspatialvolumes and the exterior masses, culminating in the central
lanterntower. In both Pfeiffer Chapel and Trinity Church,
four structuralpiers aroundthe centralspatialsquarecrossing uphold a tall lanterntower.At Trinity,hidden horizontal iron tension rods span the spaces between these piers,
analogous to the steel-reinforced concrete beams that
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Figure 10 Wright,preliminaryplan of Pfeiffer Chapel, showing six-foot modulargrid, below preliminarycross-section looking east,
with gabled ceiling continuing into central lanterntower, in which are shown below (a) five tiers of "bow ties"
Figure 12 Wright,plan for unbuiltNew
Theater,Woodstock, New York,1931
FRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT'S
ANNIE
M. PFEIFFER
CHAPEL
511
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Figure 11 Wright,revised preliminaryplan of
Pfeiffer Chapel, showing reflex angle shaping
east and west ends, west elevation (top), and
south elevation (bottom right),with miniature
church sketch plan at far right
connect Pfeiffer Chapel's columns. The Trinity-like sketch
plan in Wright's drawing suggests that in Pfeiffer Chapel
he was condensing ideas from his and other earlier works
into what appears at first glance to be an explicitly modern,
nonhistoricist church.
On 13 December 1938, as the foundation was being
laid, Wright wrote to Spivey: "I want the chapel to be ideal
in every respect and have been studying it in a model. That
study has determined me to change the plans somewhat.
Not radically and not affecting the foundation but important just the same.""3Wright visited the campus a second
time during the Christmas holidays of 1938 to inspect the
reinforced-concrete foundations and discuss construction
plans. He visited again on 23-24 March 1939, the day
before the dedication of the Johnson Wax Building, and left
his son-in-law and chief assistant, William Wesley Peters, in
charge of the project on site.s4 On 18 April, Wright wrote
to Spivey that the chapel drawings were ready and that construction above the foundation would proceed once the
right type of concrete blocks had been created. By 6 October, with building having progressed up through the firststory walls, Wright wrote to Spivey: "The Chapel became
so expensive to build with what executive labor I saw down
there that I had to simplify it greatly and I am happy to say
it is also greatly improved."5"Wright's model is not known,
yet when Peters returned to Florida Southern in November,
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2004
surrounded by regional flora.59 In sum, Wright created a
modern meeting house recalling the outdoor chapel, and a
structural form that was to signify the college's modernist
theological outlook.
Among the working drawings, a longitudinal section
shows that the ground floor's exterior block screen walls
step outward slightly above their base (Figure 15, a) before
rising to join the balcony floor. Just below the second or
balcony floor, the block screen walls similarly project one
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Church,Boston,
Figure13 HenryHobsonRichardson,
planof Trinity
1872-77, withattachedcloister
the plans he displayed "revealed that Wright has altered the
dimensions of the structure to make it lower than the originally planned height of eighty-five feet, but plans for
chimes at the top of the tower have not been changed."''56
Later published drawings document the building nearly as
built. In them, the four main structural and ventilating
columns are fixed (Figure 14). Seats total 940, with those
on the central main floor and balcony canted in plan at
thirty degrees toward the speaker. The cross-section shows
the tower's height decreased from five to three tiers of concrete "bow ties." Below the tower, the cross-section also
now shows an ornamental block choir screen, with its
repeated hexagonal openings based on the same thirty- and
sixty-degree reflex angles that shaped the plan and tower
section. Wright shortened the tower perhaps because it
overstressed the supporting beams and cantilevers within
the roof. The plan shows a unified space, with the angled
rostrum projecting toward the center from the east and no
central aisle between frontally oriented seating rows.
The final plans and section also hint at acoustic and
visual effects inside and around the chapel. The cross-section shows "sound wells" or vertical slots at the back of the
side balconies open to the main floor below (see Figure 14, a).
These wells were to improve acoustics by preventing sound
waves from being trapped in "dead zones" beneath the balconies. When E. Stanley Jones first used the chapel on 11
March 1942, he was "'astounded' by the perfect acoustics,
praising the interior as one of the most perfect places from
this standpoint in which he had ever spoken."" The crosssection shows the lantern tower as Wright intended it, with
"bells" or chimes and flowers hanging from welded trellises
above the gabled glass skylight, recalling the outdoor
chapel. The nearly spherical cast chimes, donated by Mrs.
Pfeiffer, hung in sets of three, one set above each bow tie.
The chimes were modeled on Japanese temple gongs, in
keeping with Florida Southern's emphasis on the study of
comparative religions.58 Given Wright's aim that "we ought
to help the indoors to go outdoors and the outdoors to
come inside," the section shows flowers in concrete trellises
high outside and low inside the side balconies, as well as
around the rostrum's base, so that worshippers would be
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Figure 14 Wright, Pfeiffer Chapel, final first- and second-floor plans and cross-section
looking east, as redrawn in inkfor inclusion in Wrightexhibitionat The Museum of Modern
Art, 1940, and published in its monographic catalogue, Henry-RussellHitchcock, In the
Nature of Materials,fig. 408. Cross-section shows (a) slotlike sound wells in balconies,
trellises, choir screen, and lanterntower bells or chimes.
FRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT'S
ANNIE
M. PFEIFFER
CHAPEL
513
block thickness outward beyond the first-story screen walls
(Figure 15, a'). The steel-reinforced concrete balcony floor
supports the upper block walls. The concrete balcony floors
are cantilevers that extend from the four main structural
columns, while the perforated-block walls around the
chapel's periphery are non-load-bearing screens. As one
account noted, "comparatively little weight rests on the outside walls." Documents thus refer to the block walls as the
"curtain wall" and "screen walls." A comparable structural
system appears in Wright's Johnson Wax Building
(1936-39), which Spivey wished to tour.60 Comparison of
the Pfeiffer Chapel's longitudinal section (see Figure 15)
with a sectional perspective through the Johnson Wax
Building (Figure 16) shows a similar technique of reinforced-concrete floors cantilevered from interior columns.
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The cantilevered floors carry non-load-bearing screen walls
(of brick at Johnson Wax, of block at Pfeiffer Chapel). The
Johnson Wax Building's dendriform columns, brick, and
glass were more costly than the chapel's block columns and
screen walls. For Florida Southern, Wright thus created a
cantilevered structure that was less expensive and easier to
build, but just as ingenious as at Johnson Wax.
As the first building Wright designed for the new campus, the Pfeiffer Chapel was the focus for his experiments
with cement block as the signature material for the project.
Wright's attention to the local sand on his first visit anticipated his program of testing blocks made from a mixture of
this sand and cement. When visiting the college for the second time in December 1938, Wright personally supervised
experiments with blocks made from the sand in the orange
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Figure 15 Wright, Pfeiffer Chapel, working drawings, Sheet No. 5, cross- and longitudinalsections, dated 20 October 1939, showing threetiered tower and exterior block screen walls (circled),with block courses projectingat (a) ground level and (a') below the balcony floor. Wright's
penciled and handwrittenchanges to this drawing show alterations contemplated possibly after partialdestruction of the chapel's roof and
lanterntower in the hurricaneof October 1944.
GLASS
TUBES
NON-SUPPORTING
SCREEN WALL
CANTILEVERED
SLAB
FLOOR
GLASSTUBES
w
:i.
:
?""s:-:
Figure 16 Wright,Johnson Wax AdministrationBuilding,Racine,
Wisconsin, 1936-39. Sectional perspective showing dendriform
columns supporting second floor of reinforced concrete, and outer
brickscreen wall below Pyrex glass tubing. Drawingby Vernon
Swaback
since Spanish colonial times. In keeping with a regional
modernism, "the use of natural materials wherever possible
is part of Wright's philosophy of architecture. This, he says,
Since it contained
gives indigenous character to buildings."''61
evidence of oceanic life's long history, coquina stone also
conveyed the idea of natural evolution championed by modernist theology. The chapel blocks were nine inches high by
thirty-six inches long, with ornamentally patterned faces,
individually cast in wood molds (Figure 17). Walls had two
thicknesses of block with a two-inch air space in between for
insulation and soundproofing. Blocks were laid dry, their
edges grooved to hold steel reinforcing rods and grouting,
like Wright's earlier textile blocks. The chapel walls had
about 6,000 individual blocks in forty-six different designs,
each design requiring its own mold made on campus.62
Figure 17 Wright, Pfeiffer
Chapel, blocks of cement
and sand made of crushed
coquina stone cast by
student workers, with steel
reinforcingrods projecting
from wall block courses.
View northeast to east
prow of chapel's first floor?
FRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT'S
ANNIE
M. PFEIFFER
CHAPEL
515
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SUPPORT
grove, but it proved unsuitable because of its fertilizer content. In January 1939, he requested that sacks of sand be
shipped to Taliesin West so that blocks of different mixes
and colors could be cast. Once prototypes were made, they
were shipped back to Florida, where the blocks' strength and
durability under local conditions were further tested. Eventually he chose a sand made of coquina or crushed oyster
shells from Florida's east coast, near St. Augustine, where
quarried blocks of the material had been used architecturally
The Pfeiffer Chapel's Original Structural
System
Today one enters the chapel through aluminum-framed
glass doors that replaced the original Florida cypressframed glass doors. Because of the balcony overhead, the
space's full height is not immediately visible (Figure 18).
The low, dark entries direct the eye to the first story's perforated block walls with their myriad points of colored light.
The light buff coquina blocks frame 50,400 red, amber,
blue, green, and white glass cubes, suggesting that the walls
are non-load-bearing screens. Today the central lantern
tower's skylights are of clear glass, though as originally
intended, worshippers would be able to "look upward
through the tower for nearly eighty feet, with sunlight
streaming through scores of sheets of colored glass," continuing the theme of colored glass in the base walls.6s One
observer of the chapel as first built similarly described how
"sunshine filters through the trellised tower of flowers and
blue and white glass."66 Original seating lacked a central
aisle on the main floor or the balcony, and rows were
inflected inward toward the frontal central pulpit at the
reflex angle of thirty degrees, so that the space's wholeness
was unbroken around the pulpit. As one early observer
wrote: "Upon viewing the chapel building over on the west
campus at a height of over twenty-five feet, it seems that
the visitor has been transported to the stage of an ancient
theatre similar to that built by the Greeks many years ago.
This is the impression gained as one walks around the inside
of the structure and notices the work of steel and stone
which makes up the appearance of an ancient building by its
steps and terraced piers which rise above the ground."67
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Figure 18 Wright, Pfeiffer Chapel interior,view looking north, with
lanternas rebuiltafter 1944 hurricane,showing originalseating
rebuilt,perforated block walls, corner stairways with vertical screen
railings,and pulpitof Floridacypress on top of a coquina block base
Since the Pfeiffer Chapel served as the college's main
auditorium,nearly 1,000 chairswere requiredon three sides
to hold the entire student body, which gathered in the
chapel for the first time on 18 September 1940 to open the
college's fifty-sixthyear.68The original pulpit elevated on
its platform echoed a Methodist convention. This centerpiece was of Florida red cypress,thoroughly seasoned and
kiln-dried, raised on a base of perforated coquina blocks
screening electric lights set behind. The nine-inch-high
horizontal boards continued the modular height of the
block walls, while the pulpit'sV-shapedprow canted down
at a thirty-degreeangle. OriginallyWright had envisioned
the pulpit made of a coral pink colored stone (not a marble) which "occursquite commonlyin southernFloridaand
has small shells and remnants of marine life in it."69The
original straight-backedseating, also of native red cypress
with movable cushions, was designed by Wright and made
by the college'sstudents of industrialarts(see Figure 18).70
Manyvisitors,includingWright,would speakfrom this pulpit. But most often it was Spivey'srostrum.After the pulpit
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Wright's contractual agreement with Spivey of 29 September 1938 noted that Wright was "to have complete
charge of all building operations and that a building organization will be formed at Lakeland to execute the work as
planned by him."63Robert Wehr was the superintendent of
construction after Peters left Lakeland in January 1940. In
keeping with Dewey's philosophy of active education, the
chapel was built mainly by student laborers under the supervision of skilled craftsmen. Class schedules allowed the students to work three days per week and attend classes on the
alternate three days. Ultimately forty-six students contributed about 32,000 labor hours to the chapel, primarily
molding 14,000 coquina blocks and laying 4,600 of them,
but also learning skills of foundation layout, steel work,
welding, concrete mixing and pouring, plastering, and glass
setting. The creation of the college's religious center was
thus a communal educational process.64
Figure 19 Wright, Pfeiffer Chapel interior,view toward the southeast,
showing choir screen
Figure 20 Wright, UnityTemple, Oak Park,Illinois,1905-9,
auditoriuminterior,view toward the southeast
port, by means of the cantileversystem admiredby Wright,
the heavy balconies that overhang the main floor by as
much as two yards,"and more.76Perforationsnear the column tops beneath the balcony ceiling reveal their ventilating function. An observer of the construction as it
proceeded in 1940 noted how concrete as a "block reinforcementwhich is being pouredto steadythe giant shafts"
was set in a cavitybetweeninner and outer layersof block.77
This construction created column walls eighteen inches
thick, "builtwith steel rods runninghorizontallyandvertically,"aroundthe centralair shaft.78The main balconylevel
around all four sides of the central space is cantilevered
from the four main square columns. The central balcony
and the north and south side balcony sections step up
toward the back. Figure 21 shows the steel reinforcingfor
FRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT'S
ANNIE
M. PFEIFFER
CHAPEL
517
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was destroyed in the hurricane of October 1944, Spivey
askedWright to rebuildit so that it could be removed and
to enlargethe frontalplatformfor recitals.Wright proposed
to restore the pulpit "justas it was. It was a fine feature of
the whole," and Spivey was unable to have his way until
later renovations.71
Above and behindthe pulpit,a ninety-foot choir screen
of concrete block runs across the mezzanine level from
north to south (Figure 19). Wright'sdrawingsspecifiedthat
the screen be a steel-reinforcedbeam, but such reinforcing
was not built in, so the parapet beam below carries the
entire load of the screen.72Each six-foot-wide unit in the
screen consists of patternedblock arrangedin seven superimposed courses between the balcony parapet below and
the ceiling above. The screen's motifs observe the same
thirty-sixty-degree angled geometry that governs the
chapel'splan and recurs in the lantern tower's bow ties."
Each unit of the screen rises at a thirty-degree angle from
a narrow base through a widely spreadingcentral section,
much like branches cantilevered from the trunk of an
orange tree. Loads on opposite sides of a tree are balanced
around its trunk, like the counterbalanced cantilevers
around the chapel'scolumns. The screen is thus an ornamental metaphor for the chapel'sstructuralsystem, and a
geometric conventionalization of regional flora, complementing literal flowers at the pulpit'sbase, on the side balconies' trellises, and in the central lantern tower's flower
boxes and vines.
Wright intended the choir to flank the organ and to
stand on a two-stepped movable wooden platform behind
this screen, though such a platformdoes not survive.74Six
months after the Pfeiffer Chapel'sdedication, the chapel's
choral leader requested that Wright lower the screen to
make the choir fully visible above the parapet railing.
Wright responded: "For many years I have deplored the
intrusionof personalitywith music even in the concert hall.
How much more then in the house of worship. The first
time I tried to do something about it was in Unity Temple,
Oak Park.I put a close wooden screen in front of the choir
singers.The singersrevolted.... So in this chapelI opened
the screen wall so that there might be an awarenessof the
choir andyet not be too much distractionby way of the persons involved.""7
Unity Temple as built had a screen for the
organ, with the choir standingvisibly to either side of the
console below (Figure20). In Pfeiffer Chapel, the elevated,
screened choir kept attention focused on the pulpit below.
The largest constructionsare the four six-foot-square
columns,like Unity Temple'smain cornercolumns(see Figure 20). The Pfeiffer Chapel'scolumns are the only visible
elements, "uponwhich the building hangs and which sup-
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Figure 21 Wright, Pfeiffer Chapel, working drawing showing balcony plan and sections with clusters of steel reinforcingrods, and sound wells
at rearof central balcony
the balcony floor. The large quantityof differentlyshaped
rods andvariedwood formworkneeded to cast the concrete
balcony sections made this floor "the great item of costs so
far as the whole building is concerned."79
Moving toward the center of the room, one sees the
towering lanternas a crown throughwhich abundant,constantly changing natural light passes down into the space
(Figure22). The effect calls to mind a monumentalinterior
like that of the Pantheon in Rome, or the lantern of Ely
Cathedral, albeit differently structured and on a much
smaller scale. Although banks of casement window-doors
line the upper rear of the north and south balconies, original descriptionsstress that "the chapel lacks conventional
518
JSAH
/ 63:4,
DECEMBER
2004
windows, light coming through the skylights in the roof
and tower."80One observer wrote: "During day services
odd patterns of light and shadow move slowly across the
speaker and audience."With flowering plants above and
beneath the central skylight, "sunlight streamed through
the trellis-tipped tower to fall upon the grass and flowers
Yet the huge
growing around the base of the rostrum."''81
the
heat
created
by plentiful sunlight,
skylights trapped
especially near the hundreds of balcony seats. After the
chapelwas completed, Spiveywrote to Wright:"Iwant you
to keep in mind that actuallythere is a little too much sun
in the building. When the sun passes across the building
during the mid-day,it is almost impossible to sit in it even
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20 minutes."82This problem was solved only with the
installationof air conditioning by 1967.
The high centrallanternwalls of cement block rise 26
feet 3 inches above the ceiling, as shown in a longitudinal
section for rebuilding the tower after its collapse in the 1944
hurricane (Figure 23). This section shows the tower's north
central lantern wall supported by horizontal steel reinforcing bars-visible today-set eighteen inches apart in the
\Figure 23 Wright, Pfeiffer Chapel, Sheet No. X-4, longitudinalsection through tower above balcony ceiling, undated, showing alterations for rebuildingafter the hurricaneof 1944. Note reinforcingbars
(marked "a")at eighteen-inch intervals in the open slots between the
north central lanternwall and the east and west bow-tie end towers,
and a new beam H to make up the bottom 7 feet 6 inches of the
rebuiltnorth lanternwall, below the newly raised skylight. Compare
with Sheet No. X-3, a proposed post-1944 cross-section (Figure32).
FRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT'S
ANNIE
M. PFEIFFER
CHAPEL
519
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Figure 22 Wright, Pfeiffer Chapel interior,view toward the
southwest, showing flat ceiling skylights inside west structural
columns, and cantilevers supporting lanternwalls and west bow-tie
end, as rebuiltafter 1944 hurricane,and after remodeling of pulpitand
seating, completed by 1967
open-air slots between the lantern wall and the east and
west bow-tie end masses, tying these features firmly
together (see Figure 24, a). Spanning north-south across
the ends of the tower is the triad of hollow concrete "bow
ties" (also referred to in documents as "arches"or "arch
with flower box").83Though the flower boxes are drawnas
if they were solid concrete,and the bow ties themselveslook
weighty, Wright's superintendentnoted that the bow ties
were cast as hollow concrete boxes.84The diagonalbow ties
presumably both provide lateral bracing for the central
tower'shigh walls and connect the north and south sides of
the roof structure.A visitor wonders on what these massive
bow tie structuresrest, for they are not set atop the four
hollow squarecolumns. Insteadtheir edges rest twelve feet
or two units inside the main columns. On the ceiling
between the columns and the base of the central bow ties,
where one expectsto see solidity,one sees largetwelve-footsquareskylights(see Figure 22).
520
JSAH
/ 63:4,
DECEMBER
2004
The roof'sstructuralplan revealsthe extraordinarysystem of steel-reinforcedconcretebeamsthatuphold the central lantern tower (see Figure 24). Three axonometric
drawings show the structural supports and block screen
walls for the chapel'sfirstfloor,balconylevel, and roof level
(Figure 25). Figure 26 is a detailed axonometricof the roof
level on the chapel'ssouth side, showing beams drawn in
the roof structuralplan (see Figure 24). Wright designed a
rackof beamsset within the ceilings and resting on the four
main columns. At each corner these include a 7-foot-6inch-deep cantilever beam A running north-south, supportedby two cantileverbeamsB and C extendingeast-west
in from the column. CantileverbeamsA supportthe lantern
nearest its center under the ends of the high panel wall
(points 0). North-south cantileverbeamsD coming in from
the columns support the lantern near its outer edge (point
00) and continue as the V-shapedparapetbeams E framing
the lantern'seast and west ends. Outer east-west beam F
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Figure 24 Wright,Pfeiffer Chapel, Sheet 10, roof structuralplan, dated 20 October 1939, showing "beams" (meaning bundles of steel
reinforcingrods) at balcony ceiling level. Penciled revisions were likely made after the roof's partialcollapse in the hurricaneof 1944.
Figure 25 Author'saxonometric drawing
(using FormZ) of Wright, Pfeiffer Chapel,
main structuralsupports and screen walls
on first floor, balcony level or second floor,
and roof level
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Figure 26 Author'saxonometric drawing
(using Form Z) of Wright, Pfeiffer Chapel,
south roof structuralplan, with beams and
points labeled as in Figures 24 and 27
Wteat
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o
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LLOYD WRIGHT'S
ANNIE
M. PFEIFFER
CHAPEL
521
Figure 27 Wright, Pfeiffer
Chapel, under construction,
1940, photographwith
author's graphic notations
showing cantilever beams A
and D, points 0 and 00,
cantilever beam B, beam G,
and parapet beam E below
bow tie, as labeled in Figure
26, before installationof
skylight glass and plastering
of concrete
522
JSAH / 63:4, DECEMBER 2004
27) shows cantilever beams A and D, points 0 and 00, cantilever beam B, beam G, and V-shaped parapet beam E
below a bow tie at the lantern's end, before the skylight glass
was installed and the concrete plastered. Overall, the interlocking cantilevers of the Pfeiffer Chapel's ceiling, with the
entire roof-like the mezzanine floor-counterbalanced on
the columns, represent one of Wright's most ingenious and
daring structural systems. At first glance, the massive
lantern tower appears to rest on air, as if held up by magic.
Documents do not name a structural engineer as
Wright's collaborator. Perhaps William Wesley Peters made
the structural calculations, as he had done for the Johnson
Wax Building's columns, when he worked with Mendel
Glickman as a consulting engineer.88 For Wright, the steelreinforced cantilever extended into space signified the new
structural freedom of modern architecture. He wrote: "The
principle of the cantilever, coupled with a desire to get rid
of the box, began to work in my mind as a kind of miracle.... This could never have happened much before it did
happen; it could not have happened in the Middle Ages; it
could not have happened until we had the steel rod in tension." He understood this cantilevered form to be a
metaphor for political freedom as the central idea of democracy, saying of steel in tension: "It is just like the democratic principle that we subscribe to; that is why I have always
referred to this as the architecture of democracy: the freedom of the individual becomes the motive for society and
government. ... With an ideal of freedom, being born free
in a free country, the box got to the point where it no longer
would serve; it was inadequate. And this is what is truly at
the center of any adequate comprehension of what a building for a democracy should be."89
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spans the side balcony between cantileverbeams A. Inner
east-west beam F spans the two structuralcolumns. Eastwest beamsG spanthe centrallantern'sedge betweenpoints
0 and 00, the inner ends of cantileverbeams A and D. On
the roof structuralplan (see Figure 24), "revised"with penciled changes probablyafterthe hurricaneof 1944, Wright
shows an additionaleast-westwall beam H that forms the
lower 7 feet 6 inches of the lantern wall between the ends
of the two cantileverbeamsA (points 0). North-south wall
beam I spansthe cantileverbeamsA to supportthe side balcony roof from above. Thus Wright balancedcantilevered
loads of balcony and roof inwardfrom the columns toward
the chapel'scenterwith cantileveredloads outwardfromthe
columns toward the chapel's sides. One observer wrote:
"Mostof the weight of the buildingis carriedon four large,
hollow piers adjacentto each of the four entrances.Counterbalancedon these pillarsare the mezzaninefloor, second
and third decks, and the 36-ft. tower."s85
Perhapsto save expense and to enable flexibilityin the
systemof reinforcing,one accountnoted that "no structural
steel was used in the chapel building,"presumablymeaning that the roof "beams"were not solid I- or T-beams of
rolled steel, but ratherbundles of 11/2x 13/4-inchsteel reinforcing rods set in poured concrete, as shown in the balcony's steel reinforcing plan (see Figure 21).86 Such rods
appearin other working drawingsand steel schedules for
the building. Wright specified the rods' sizes and shapes,
which were craftedon site. One accountnoted that "agiant
thumb screw is used to bend the steel rods used in the constructiondue to the weight and thicknessof the steel. Some
rods are over 40 feet long [aboutthe length of beamsF] and
made of heavysteel.""87
A constructionview of 1940 (Figure
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Figure 28 (a) Adler and Sullivan,AuditoriumBuilding,Chicago, 1886-90, and (b) Holabirdand
Roche, Old Colony Building,Chicago, 1893-94, foundation sections showing cantilever beams
as footings supporting multistorycolumns at partywalls (circled)
Wright recalled that his early experiments with dramatic cantilevers of steel-reinforced concrete had culminated in Unity Temple, whose plan was a point of departure
for the Pfeiffer Chapel's. His most dramatic cantilevers had
recently appeared in Fallingwater and in the dendriform
columns of the Johnson Wax Building. Yet in both these
buildings, the cantilevered concrete supports its own weight
and limited loads above. In the Pfeiffer Chapel, the four
central cantilevers support the weight of the concrete bow
ties and the thirty-ton concrete block panel walls on the
north and south sides of the central lantern. A precedent
with which Wright would have been familiar was the cantilevered beams as foundational supports for multistoried
columns at the party walls of tall buildings. This structural
technique was developed in Chicago when Wright apprenticed with Adler and Sullivan, who first used it in the Auditorium Building (1886-90; Figure 28, a). Similar cantilever
beam footings upheld multistory columns at party walls in
Holabird and Roche's Old Colony Building in Chicago
(1893-94; see Figure 28, b).90 In the Pfeiffer Chapel,
Wright adapted the concept of dramatic cantilevers supporting weighty towers from its underground origins in
commercial building, bringing it up into the light to crown
a spiritual space.
In the Pfeiffer Chapel, Wright distanced his art from
the Gothic Revival, yet inside there are analogies to the
experience of Gothic architecture. Around the periphery,
the colored glass in the perforated block screen walls evokes
FRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT'S
ANNIE
M. PFEIFFER
CHAPEL
523
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4-10 ,- l/c~
_ _ ine._ __-_
524
JSAH
/ 63:4,
DECEMBER
2004
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istic letter of the Gothic, as in Goodhue's Rockefeller
Chapel for the University of Chicago, but ratherthe principle of Gothic form in terms of modern construction.
Wright, like Goodhue, admired Gothic cathedrals from
childhood. For Goodhue, the heroic figure of the modern
Gothic Revivalwas Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in his design for
Liverpool Cathedral,begun in 1901, which was the model
for the "modern Gothic" of Rockefeller Chapel. If the
masonrybuttressand ribbedvault are the language of traditional Gothic, then Wright's modern variation on the
ideal of structuralart is based on the concrete column and
cantilever.In the Pfeiffer Chapel, Wright recalledthe thesis of Eugene-EmmanuelViollet-le-Duc, the greattheorist
of the French Gothic Revival.Since his youth, Wright had
admiredViollet-le-Duc's writings, especiallyhis Entretiens
sur l'architecture
(Paris;vol. 1, 1863;vol. 2, 1872), translated
as LecturesonArchitecture
in Americaneditions of 1877 and
1885. In treating modern architecture, these lectures
stressed the possibility of realizing the vivid structural
expressionof medievalGothic architecturein iron-spanned
publicinteriorsfor modern buildings,as in Viollet-le-Duc's
often cited design for a concert hall, with a central space
spannedin a networkof iron-supportedbrickvaultsencased
in a stone shell (Figure 30). Perhaps nowhere else in his
oeuvre did Wright come closer to realizing the spirit of
Viollet-le-Duc's ideal than in the Pfeiffer Chapel. Wright's
building was a modern reinterpretation in steel of the
Gothic ideal of architectureas an art of structuralinventiveness based on rational engineering. As if echoing
Figure 29 Pfeiffer Chapel interior,view into east end of central
Viollet-le-Duc, he later wrote of modern religious buildlanterntower, with bow ties between tower's end walls
ings: "The Gothic erais past,andwith it shouldgo its architecture.Yes,it'sgood-by to Gothic-as a style. But not to its
spirit of reverencefor beauty.That should be expressedin
the culturalmemory of stained glass in medieval architec- new styles attuned to the new day, using steel, concrete,
ture. When one enters the chapel'scentral space, the towglass, and other modern materials."91
The symbolic goal of Wright's structuralsystem was
ering lanternand its flankingskylightsrising above the four
structural
create
an
vernot
to
exhibittechnicalvirtuositybut to accentuatepercepmajorsquare
piers
overwhelmingly
tical impression,inviting one'seyes towardthe sky,which is tion of architectureas spatialratherthan materialform. In
clearlyseen directlyoverhead(Figure29). The soaringver- later statements,he equatedmaterialenrichmentin buildticality of space lit from above recalls the effect of Gothic ing with materialismin modernlife, exemplifiedfor Wright
architecture,whose ribbed vaults suspended high in space by historicistarchitecture,such as at what he called "Rockaboveglassclerestoriesconjurethe miraculous.Like the fly- efeller Chicago University."92
In 1957, he reiteratedan idea
ing buttressesof Gothic architecture,the Pfeiffer Chapel's that had preoccupiedhim from the 1920s, saying:"Lao-tse
system of cantileveredbeamsupon which the lanternwalls declaredthe realityof a buildingdid not consist in the walls
and skylightsrest is invisiblefrom inside, so that one is conand roof but in the space within to be lived in. Well, now,
frontedwith what looks at firstglance to be an architectural there you have the life of the spiritas realityratherthan the
miracle.The effect is a sensation of wonder,in the sense of things that go to make up what we call materialism.That
both awe at the techniqueof buildinginvolved and mystery has entered into architecturenow. That interior sense of
as to how this puzzling feat was actuallyachieved.
life is reallytrue of organicarchitecture."'93
Like Unity TemIn this regard,Wright successfullyrealizednot the styl- ple, the Pfeiffer Chapel does have a powerful spatial form
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Figure 30 Eugene-EmmanuelViollet-le-Duc,unbuiltdesign for a
concert hall
even when empty,as if its spatiality,achievedthroughmodern constructive techniques, exemplified both a stylistic and
symbolic alternative to collegiate Gothic conventions.
Hence the chapel's form would express the modernity of its
college's ideals.
The Pfeiffer Chapel's Collapse and
Reconstruction
Wright created an extraordinary building that soon became
an "object of controversy among architects and laymen
alike."94 Days before the chapel's dedication on 9 March
1941, Spivey, who had traveled throughout Europe and the
United States, wrote to Wright: "It is the most beautiful
building I have ever seen. And, I believe that when you see
land, whose building code is said not to have then covered
hurricanes.100After a night of buffeting winds, the tower's
two thirty-ton concrete block slab walls (but not the bowtie ends) collapsed. That day Spivey wrote to Wright: "I am
sorry to tell you that the hurricane did serious damage to
our chapel. The two [panel] walls fell. Facing the west, the
left [south] wall fell to the right, and, of course destroyed
both of the skylights. The right [north] one fell likewise to
the right, and destroyed the top of the building back to the
FRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT'S
ANNIE
M. PFEIFFER
CHAPEL
525
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_-
it, you will believe that it is the finest thing you have ever
done. People are charmed with it."95 Wright could not
attend the dedication, and had not seen the finished chapel,
though in the months that followed, visitors came daily
from all over the country. Many praised it; others called it
a monstrosity. The chapel was featured in the exhibition of
Wright's life's work at The Museum of Modern Art in 1940,
since the curator, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, had taken
much interest in it.96 One account noted: "Explaining that
he had not overlooked the possibility of hurricane winds
when he planned the building, Mr. Wright provided for
double walls cemented together and reinforced with steel
rods running horizontally as well as vertically. The result is
virtually a meshwork of steel within the walls to take up any
stress which the elements may provide."97
This proved to be an over-optimistic assessment, partly
because Wright had never before designed a building to
withstand hurricanes. Their very high winds exert sudden,
severe lateral pressure on vertical walls, like those in the
chapel's tower. On 4 December 1939, as construction above
ground began, Peters wrote to Wright from Lakeland:
"There is one thing that worries me about the Chapel drawings at present: the tall walls in the central part of the tower
have absolutely no support against wind pressure. As you
remember they were originally shown on the perspective
with small connections at certain intervals to the end masses
[see Figure 9]. On the set of drawings I have here these connections are not indicated at all. Please advise me as to what
you desire here. Without some tie or other bracing it seems
to me these free standing walls are dangerous. Would it be
possible to brace them internally by means of steel braces
having some reference to the skylight."98 The relevant
drawings to which Peters likely referred, such as Sheet 14,
the cross-section through the tower (Figure 31), do not
show such ties. Wright later claimed that the drawings were
corrected on this point when the chapel was first built, with
multiple ties connecting the lantern walls to the bow tie
ends. Yet it is not clear if corrected details were supplied in
1940, or if such ties were originally built in.99
Through the night of 18-19 October 1944, a hurricane
with winds of 100-plus miles per hour swept through Lake-
right wing balcony. No other serious damage was done."'o'
Soon thereafter, referring Wright to Sheet 10 of the drawings, the roof structural plan (see Figure 24), Spivey
reported that several roof beams had been damaged.102
Negative wind pressure in the open slot between the tower's
walls likely exacerbated stresses caused by winds buffeting
the south face. High on its exposed slope, Wright's chapel
reportedly suffered the heaviest damage to any structure in
the Lakeland area.
With damage covered by insurance, Spivey sought to
rebuild quickly. On 19 October, he wrote to Wright: "As
soon as you get this letter, you must rethink how we are to
rebuild it. I do not believe that it will be advisable to rebuild
the wall as it was. The tremendous wind that gets up as high
as 100 miles per hour will blow down any wall you put there.
Why not think of some lattice work they [sic]would let the
526
JSAH
/ 63:4,
DECEMBER
2004
wind through, and yet function in the same way that the wall
would function?"'03Wright replied: "The iron-rod connections crossing the open slots between the end towers and the
panel walls must have been weak and torn away or the side
panels could never have fallen. I have no way of knowing precisely what was done at those crucial points of contact. However, let's put the roof back in shape immediately, just as it
was. The damaged roof beams can be left where and as they
are temporarily until we reinforce each of them with others
cast just inside each of them and covering them from below.
These new deep beams [beams H on Figures 24 and 26 forming the bases of the rebuilt lantern walls] will extend upward
into the bottom of the two side panels to make all extraordinarily rigid ..... There was no precaution taken against Hurricanes in the tower as I never realized we were down in the
terrific Hurricane belt. But a one-hundred-mile wind should
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Figure 31 Wright, Pfeiffer Chapel, Sheet 14, Cross Section thru Chapel, lanterntower cross-section, undated. Likelydrafted in 1939 as one of
the originalworking drawings, this sheet shows where Wright,probablyafter the hurricaneof 1944, penciled alternativereinforcedbeams at the
lanternwalls' bases, and sets of four horizontalreinforcingbars inserted between the first and second and the second and thirdbow ties. The
central gabled skylight is shown hung below the lanternwalls, as it was originallybuilt (see Figure27).
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Figure 32 Wright, Pfeiffer Chapel, Sheet No. X-3, alterationof tower cross-section for rebuildingafter 1944 hurricane,dated 15 November 1944,
showing reinforcingbars in tower walls, proposed beams on inner faces of tower walls (not built),and central gabled skylight raised between
tower walls rebuiltto improve their lateralbracing.The handwrittennotations "void" indicate that this was not the cross-section as actually
rebuilt.This is shown in Sheet No. X-4, the post-1944 longitudinalsection (Figure23).
not have damaged the tower. We will rebuild it now to stand
anything that Florida has ever had."''04
Wright's surviving drawings for "alterations" to the
Pfeiffer Chapel are dated late in 1944, and include structural revisions like those he described. He sketched possible
changes on the roof structural plan, Sheet 10 (see Figure
24), and on the tower cross-section (Figure 31), where
Wright penciled alternative reinforced beams at the lantern
walls' base and sets of four reinforcing bars inserted
between the first and second, and between the second and
third bow ties. Post-hurricane drawings for the rebuilding
are marked "alterations" to the Pfeiffer Chapel. Among
these, the longitudinal section (see Figure 23) shows the
new steel reinforcing rods that were to link the lantern walls
with the lantern's bow-tie ends. This drawing also shows
the rebuilding of the lantern walls' lowest 7 feet 6 inches as
a heavily reinforced beam of blocks, noted as "new wall
beam H." Comparison of the lantern tower cross-sections
before the hurricane (see Figure 31) and one partly built
proposal for reconstructing the tower (Figure 32) shows
that in the rebuilt lantern walls, such pairs of half-inch reinforcing rods were to run horizontally between every course
of concrete blocks, and vertically as well. Horizontal rods
were included in the rebuilding between at least every other
course, as shown in Figure 23, a longitudinal section for the
rebuilt lantern. Figure 32 shows additional clusters of horizontal reinforcing rods at the lantern walls' base, and
embedded in beams set in the walls' inner faces above each
level of bow ties. These beams were not built, as shown in
Figure 23. Wright also redesigned the skylight's diagonal
steel framing. Figure 31 shows the main skylight hung
below the lantern walls as originally built, while Figure 32
FRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT'S
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M. PFEIFFER
CHAPEL
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The Pfeiffer Chapel: Style and Ideology
similar theme, claiming that American democracy had originated in its colonial religious life, and that democracy
would survive the current era of world war only if religion
Both Spivey and Wright placed considerable symbolic
weight on the new architecturefor Florida Southern College, but they brought somewhat different,if complementary,perspectivesto its meaning. For Spivey,the future of
Florida Southern lay with the ideal of modern religion as
the foundation of democracy.With his creation of the E.
StanleyJonesFoundation,Spiveyenvisionedhis institution
as a national interdenominationalcenter, where scientific
inquirywould coexist harmoniouslywith modernist theological studiesamida new modernarchitecturalsetting. But
in the late 1930s, like his mentor Dewey, Spivey'surgent
flourished.'13
Democracy had long been Wright's political and cultural ideal. For him, democracy in architecture meant not
only a modern rather than a historically derived style, but
also a modernism that exhibited the regional variety of
organic architecture, not the uniformity of the International
Style. He said: "The only way to avoid the unconfined
spread of modernized mannerisms is to make people aware
of the potentialities of their own regions and to dissuade
them of the illusion that good American architecture is necThe Pfeiffer Chapel was Wright's
essarily All-American.""114
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shows the rebuilt skylight raised to laterally brace the international concern was the threat to American democlantern'spanel walls.As Wright wired Spiveyon 4 Novemracy from fascist and communist governments abroad.
ber 1944: "The demolished panel wall[s]will be rebuilt in
Spivey formed firsthand impressions of Europe during sumconnection with skylight which will now come well up mer tours in 1936 and 1937, when he visited a score of
countries. Upon his return in both years, he lectured widely
between them and be part of them. Greatly improve the
from
the
of
whole chapel, snatchingvictory
jaws defeat."''l on campus and regionally.109
Although Spivey saw Nazi Germany as militarily
Wright's puzzlement at the chapel lantern's collapse
derivedfrom his belief that he had specified more connec- threatening, like Dewey he focused more rhetorical energy
tions between the lantern walls and the bow-tie end walls on Soviet Russia, which presented an ideological challenge
thanwere actuallybuilt.Yet,as noted, it is not clearwhether to the United States, then emerging from the Great
adequatereinforcingwas ever specified.In late 1948, when Depression. Spivey claimed that "Russia is making great
considering Wright for the Gold Medal of the American progress in a number of areas. In some ways she even outInstitute of Architects,the presidentof the St. Louis chap- strips America. But it is unthinkable that anyone who has
ter asked Spivey if the chapel'stower had collapsed and, if experienced the fruits of both America and Europe should
so, what the circumstanceshad been.106Spiveyreplied that even consider exchanging our civilization for Russia'sway of
life. Russia has solved the problem of unemployment, but is
the south lanternwall'scollapsein the hurricane"wasin nowise due to [Wright's]architecture.The contractor[Wehr] as far from growing free men and women as the old czarist
was an amateurand neglected to tie the sides on to, what I regime was."110To Spivey, it fell to the United States, and
would call the [bow-tie end] pillars as was planned by the its religions, to oppose foreign ideological threats. To this
architect. It is a wonder that the wall stood up at end, he raised funds for a Chair of Democracy at Florida
all. ... Since the above incident we have had two or three Southern, announced early in 1939. A lecture series rather
than a faculty position, the chair's aims were "to combat
hurricaneswithout any damage.Let me say,again,this collapse was in no-wise related to the architecture of Mr. Fascism, Communism and other un-American trends, to
Wright. If the contractorhad carriedout the plans,the inci- make clear the meaning of democracy, to insist that Amerdent would have never happened."'•0Wright laterwrote to icans be active in preserving their liberties."'11 Spivey then
Spivey that his chapel plans were "executedunder circum- hosted a Democracy Day at Florida Southern in 1940, to
stancestoo cheap and practicallybotched in construction." which he invited Dewey and nationally known clergy.
Wright's chapel was to signify such ideals. When it was dedWright was upset when the college'sbuildings"costtoo little to be good enough and were a damage to our reputa- icated, one editor wrote: "Unique in its conception, this
tion-like the wreck of the panel walls of the chapel tower temple of coquina blocks, steel and glass immediately
due to the ignoring of instructions. A direct timely letter becomes a symbol of applied democracy. It is a temple in
concerning their anchorageI have found in our files."'18It which young people will be told to have a sacred regard for
is unclearto which letter Wright may have been referring, human personality. They will be told to do unto others as
but Spivey'saffirmation of Wright's blamelessness in the
they would have others do unto them, and that is the major
tower's fall must have quelled the A.I.A.'s concerns, for precept of democracy."'12 In his first address from the
chapel's pulpit in 1942, the Rev. E. StanleyJones sounded a
Wright was awardedthe institute'sGold Medal in 1949.
first public work to embody the ideal of democracy as
regionalism. For its dedication, he wrote:
College ChapelDesigned to Expressthe Significanceof a Name-Florida,"
ArchitectandEngineer146 (July1941), 34-36; HarrisG. Sims,"Modernistic
College Chapel," New YorkTimes Magazine, 14 Sept. 1941, 15; William S.
When the flowers are in the boxes and climbing up the metal
trellises, and the round bronze bells are ringing above them,
Floridawill have found an expression in buildingof her proper
name. I hope and believe that the chapel strikes, with new clarity, the chord between Floridacharacterand beauty and the life
of your many boys and girls. ... There will be many, still, who
"disbelieve" and long for accustomed religiousforms. But they,
at least, will have a glimpse of the world to come in this little
window we have set there on the campus of FloridaSouthern
College to look out upon that world.115
struction, not imitative of the Gothic style. Yet its block
walls as perforated screens of colored glass, and its towering central lantern with its daring structure, did call to mind
ideas of Gothic architecture as a cultural memory and as the
epitome of rationally novel construction in the spirit of
Viollet-le-Duc. For Spivey, the Pfeiffer Chapel was to be
the setting for a program of preaching and lecturing that
stressed democracy as a political ideal on the eve of American involvement in World War II, when that ideal appeared
to be globally in retreat in the face of totalitarian aggression. For Wright, democracy was an architectural ideal,
wherein he regarded not stylistic convention, whether historicist or modernist, but rather individual invention to be
the keynote of the future.
Concrete 8 (1942), 16-17; Henry-Russell Hitchcock, In the Nature of Materials: The Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright, 1887-1941 (New York, 1942),
99-101; FrankLloyd Wright, An Autobiography
(New York, 1943), bk. 5,
"Form,"repr.in Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, ed., FrankLloydWright:Collected
Writings,Vol.4:1939-1949 (New York,1994), 171;"FloridaSouthernCollege, Designed by FrankLloyd Wright,"Architects'
Journal 106 (London)
(1 July 1946), 73; "FloridaSouthern College, Designed by Frank Lloyd
Wright," Architects' Journal 106 (25 Dec. 1947), 559-61; "Frank Lloyd
Forum88 (Jan.1948), 127-35; Donna M. Stoddard,
Wright,"Architectural
"FrankLloyd Wright Designs a College," Design 50 (June 1949), 12-13,
23; "Wright Campus Blooms in Fla.," Art Digest 24 (15 Apr. 1950), 13;
FrankLloydWright, "AnAdventurein the Human Spirit,"Motive11 (Nov.
1950), 30-31; FrankLloyd Wright, "AFour-ColorPortfolio of the Recent
Work of the Dean of ContemporaryArchitects,with His Own Commentary on Each Building,"ArchitecturalForum94 (Jan. 1951), 104-5; "The
Architectureof FrankLloyd Wright at Florida Southern College; Architectureof RobertLawWeed, A.I.A.,at FloridaSouthernCollege,"National
Architect(Detroit) 7 (Apr.1951), 4-6; "FloridaSouthernCollege Revisited
for Glimpses of the AdministrationGroup in Wright'sOrganicCampus,"
ArchitecturalForum97 (Sept. 1952), 120-27; "The Frank Lloyd Wright
Campus," Bulletin of Florida Southern College, Lakeland 69 (Apr. 1953);
"FrankLloyd Wright Completes a Long, Low IndustrialArts Buildingfor
FloridaSouthernUniversity ... and Begins a Civic Center for the Capital
of His Home State,"Architectural
Forum101 (Apr.1955), 114-21; Charles
T. Thrift, Jr., Through Three Decades at Florida Southern College, Lakeland,
Fla. (Lakeland, 1955); "The Frank Lloyd Wright Campus," Bulletinof
Florida Southern College 72 (Jan. 1956), 1-17, 20; "Frank Lloyd Wright: A
Selection of CurrentWork;Music Buildingfor FloridaSouthernCollege,"
Architectural
Record123 (May 1958), 172-73; "FrankLloydWright, "Architectural Forum 110 (June 1959), 122; Frank Lloyd Wright, Drawings for a
Living Architecture (New York, 1959), 27-29; Peter Blake, The Master
Builders(New York,1960), 379-80; Vincent Scully,Jr., FrankLloydWright
(New York,1960), 29-30; ArthurDrexler,ed., TheDrawingsofFrankLloyd
Wright(New York,1962), pl. 150, 304; YukioFutagawaand Martin Pawley, Frank Lloyd Wright: Public Buildings (New York, 1970), 27-32; Futagawa
and Pfeiffer, Frank Lloyd Wright: Pfeiffer Chapel, Florida Southern College,
Lakeland, Florida, 1938; Beth Shalom Synagogue, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania,
1954, GlobalArchitecture40 (Tokyo,1976);Hattie S. Horwitz, "The West
Campusat FloridaSouthernCollege, Lakeland,Florida,and Its Builders"
(master'sthesis, University of Miami, 1976); David A. Hanks, TheDecora-
Notes
AndrewPearson, directorof the Roux Library,Florida SouthernCollege;
OscarMufioz, FrankLloyd Wright Archives;KatherineWolfe and Kathleen Stefanowicz,InterlibraryLoan, Olin Library,Wesleyan University;
and my wife, Professor Susanne Fusso, were invaluably helpful in the preparation of this article. Wesleyan provided both a semester's sabbatical and
two supplementary grants in support of scholarship to help defray the costs
of the photographs. I also thank James Forren (Wesleyan '97; M.Arch.,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2004) for tutoring in Form Z.
1. "Usonian Architect," Time, 17 Jan. 1938, 29.
2. There is no detailed study of the Annie M. Pfeiffer Chapel. Publications
on Wright's architecture for Florida Southern College, most of which mention or briefly discuss the chapel, include: "Wright and Center," Architectural Forum 68 (June 1938), 12; "Frank Lloyd Wright's Newest Creation: A
tive Designs of Frank Lloyd Wright (New York, 1979), 53, 197; Charles T.
Thrift, Jr., ed., Of Fact and Fancy... at Florida Southern College (Lakeland,
1979), 65-109; Futagawa and Pfeiffer, Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph, Vol.
6:1937-1941
(Tokyo, 1984), 104-27; Paul V. Turner, Campus:An American
Tradition
(New York and Cambridge, Mass., 1984), 252-57;
Planning
Thomas Doremus, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier:The Great Dialogue
(New York, 1985), 41-45; Theodore M. Haggard, Florida Southern College:
The First 100 Years;An Illustrated History (Lakeland, 1985), 74-75, 80-103,
130-31; Pfeiffer, Frank Lloyd Wright: Letters to Clients (Fresno, 1986),
158-86; Futagawa and Pfeiffer, eds., Frank Lloyd Wright: Preliminary Studies 1933-1959 (Tokyo, 1987), 96-99; Brendan Gill, Many Masks: A Life of
Frank Lloyd Wright (New York, 1987), 396-402, 410, 463, 472; PatrickJ.
Meehan, ed., Truth Against the World:.Frank Lloyd Wright Speaks for an
Organic Architecture (New York, 1987), 148, 158-83; Pfeiffer, Frank Lloyd
Wright: His Living Voice(Fresno, 1987), 42-43; Futagawa and Pfeiffer, eds.,
FRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT'S
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The Pfeiffer Chapel thus marked the intersection of the
many symbolic concerns that Spivey and Wright brought
to Florida Southern. It was to be both a chapel for a denominationally owned college, and the theme building for the
nondenominational foundation that was to make the college a national religious center. It was to be a modern con-
Chambers,Jr., "Innovationin College Chapel Architecture,"Architectural
Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph, Vol. 7: 1942-1950 (Tokyo, 1988), 19-33;
Futagawa and Pfeiffer, eds., Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph, Vol. 8:
rer, Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 281, 292, 377, 403, 440. Wright's
1951-1959 (Tokyo, 1988), 112-15; Pfeiffer, Frank Lloyd Wright Drawings:
Masterworksfrom the Frank Lloyd WrightArchives (New York, 1990), 94-95;
First Christian Church in Phoenix was designed in 1951 and built in
1971-72, with the belltoweraddedin 1978. See also MaryJaneHamilton,
"The Unitarian Meeting House," in Paul E. Sprague, ed., FrankLloyd
Luca Zevi, "FloridaSouthernCollege. Una miniaturadellacitth-territorio
Wright and Madison: Eight Decades ofArtistic and Social Interaction (Madison,
wrightiana," L'Architettura. Cronachee Storia 37 (July-Aug. 1991), 429-30,
1990), 179-88; PatriciaT. Davis, Together
TheyBuilta Mountain(Lititz,Pa.,
648-67; RichardJoncas, "'PureForm':The Origins and Development of
FrankLloyd Wright'sNonrectangularGeometry"(Ph.D. diss., Stanford
University,1991), 325-32; PaulLaseauandJamesTice, FrankLloydWright:
1974); and John Gurda, New World Odyssey:Annunciation Greek Orthodox
Church and Frank Lloyd Wright (Milwaukee, 1986).
Between Principle and Form (New York, 1992), 19, 43, 134-35, 152, 160-61;
Meryle Secrest, FrankLloydWright(New York, 1992), 479-80; Kenneth
Lockhart, in Edgar Tafel, ed., About Wright: An Album of Recollectionsby
Those Who Knew Frank Lloyd Wright (New York, 1993), 133-38; William A.
Storrer, The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion (Chicago, 1993), 260-66;
Anthony Alofsin, "FrankLloyd Wright and Modernism," and Terence
Riley, "The Landscapesof FrankLloyd Wright: A Pattern of Work,"in
Patterson, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Meaning of Materials (New York,
1994), 4, 6-7, 118, 122-24, 152, 168, 170, 178, 181-85, 187-89, 192, 194,
201; David M. Hertz, Frank Lloyd Wright in Word and Form (New York,
1995), 107-15; William MacDonaldandJohn A. Pinto, Hadrian'sVillaand
Its Legacy(New Haven, 1995), 322-23; Steven B. Rogers, "A 'Great EducationTemple':The FrankLloydWright Campusat FloridaSouthernCollege," The Archi: The Magazine ofAlpha Rho Chi Fraternity 74 (winter 1995),
4-8; Neil A. Levine, The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright (Princeton,
1996), 308-10, 481-82 nn. 34-39; Curtis Besinger, Workingwith Mr.
Wright:WhatIt WasLike (New York, 1997), 117-18; Robert McCarter,
FrankLloydWright(London, 1997), 291-96; Joncas, "Buildingsfor Learning," in David G. De Long, ed., Frank Lloyd Wright and the Living City
(Milan, 1998), 120; and Storrer, The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright: A
Florida Conferenceof the Methodist Church (1963), 301-2. Raised in Texas and
Oklahoma, Spivey came from a family of successfulretailers.Reportedly
he had wanted to become a Methodist ministerfrom childhood,and after
attending Epworth University (1909-10) and Vanderbilt University
(1910-12), he was ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
Afterthree pastorates,he servedas deanat Birmingham-SouthernCollege,
Alabama(1922-25). At Chicago, Spivey earnedthe degrees of bachelorof
arts(1919), bachelorof divinity(1920), andmasterof artsin divinity(1922),
with a thesis on Methodist educationin Americaprior to 1820. The thesis
prefiguredhis administrativecareerat FloridaSouthernin that it detailed
the histories of eleven Methodist academies and colleges founded the
United States after the War of Independence,including their fundraising
and buildingprograms.Dewey taughtand chairedthe Departmentof Philosophy at the University of Chicago from 1894 to 1904. During that
period, he developed a Department of Pedagogy, devoted to the science
and philosophyof education,and establishedan experimentalelementary
school known as the LaboratorySchool or the Dewey School. Steven C.
CompleteCatalogue,3rd ed. (Chicago, 2002), 252-60.
Wright's other discrete structureson the Florida Southern campus
are the Cora Carter,Isabel Walbridge,and CharlesW. Haskins Seminar
Buildings(1940),E. T. RouxLibrary(1941-45); IndustrialArts(laterLucius
Pond Ordway) Building (1942-52); Emile Watson and Benjamin Fine
administrationbuildings (1945-48); Science and CosmographyBuilding
(1953); and the William H. Danforth Chapel (1954). Wright designed the
coveredwalkwaysor esplanadesbetween these buildings,and a waterdome
(designed 1938; built as a circularpool 1948), which was later converted
into smaller pools. Steven Rogers, a Florida Southern alumnus,is completing a book on Wright'scampus.LawrenceKinsley,of Lakeland,is also
writing a volume on the subject.
On restoration,see Judy Donohue, "Restorationfor Florida Southern," ProgressiveArchitecture71 (Apr. 1990), 30-31; "Chip off the Old
Block,"RIBAJournal 100 (Aug. 1993), 40-41; Michael Ball, "Restoring
198 (13 Oct. 1993), 59;Ziva
Wright'sConcreteCampus,"Architects'Journal
York, 1991), 224-32. Spivey later createda LaboratorySchool at Florida
Southern, for which Wright planned a kindergartenbuilding (not constructed)in the campus'ssouthwestcorner(see Figure 6 in presentarticle).
On the landboom of the 1920sandsubsequentdepression,see CharltonW.
Tebeau,A HistoryofFlorida(Coral Gables, 1971), 377-92, 393-411.
6. Spivey'sdevotion to John Dewey was legendary at Florida Southern,
Freiman, "Modernism's Latterday Heroes," ProgressiveArchitecture76 (Sept.
1995), 78-95; Andrew Mead, "Updating Giants of the Past," Architects'
Journal 205 (8 May 1997), 29-32; and Kenneth Powell, "The Wright
Spirit," Architects'Journal 214 (22 Nov. 2001), 24-33.
where he used Dewey's works, including his Human Nature and Conduct:An
Introduction to Social Psychology (New York, 1922), as a basis for his own
courses in sociology. As one alumnus recalled: "Dr. Spivey had been
installed as president. He had a reputation of being quite liberal theologi-
3. Following the Pfeiffer Chapel, Wright's realized religious buildings were
the Community Church, Kansas City, Missouri (1940-41); First Unitarian
Society Meeting House, Shorewood Hills, Wisconsin (1947-51); Beth
cally and an ardent follower of John Dewey's school of thought." Comrning
E Tolle '29, quoted in Thrift, Of Fact and Fancy, 57. Another alumna
recalled that on Sunday afternoons Spivey invited a select group of col-
Shalom Synagogue, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania (1954-59); Annunication
Greek Orthodox Church, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin (1956-63); and the Pil-
leagues and students to the president's house to read and discuss Dewey's
works. Juliane Jordan '52, quoted in Thrift, Of Fact and Fancy, 100. As the
Pfeiffer Chapel was built, Spivey discussed Dewey's ideas in many unpublished lectures and sermons. See typescripts, 13-K-00: Speeches by Presi-
grim Congregational Church, Redding, California (1958-61), of which only
the parish hall was built. Brief statements on these structures appear in Stor530
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Frank Lloyd Wright Architect (New York, 1994), 50 and 104, respectively,
and pls. 252, 262-63; Pedro E. Guerrero, Picturing Wright: An Album from
Frank Lloyd Wright's Photographer (San Francisco, 1994), 116-17; Terry L.
4. On its Lakelandcampus,FloridaSouthern'sbuildingsconstructedbefore
Wright's were the women's dormitory (1922; renamedJoseph-Reynolds
Hall in 1937);socialhall (1922; renamedEdge Hall in 1935);athleticfield
andmen'sdormitory(1926;the latterlatera laboratoryandmusicbuilding);
heating plant (1926); gymnasium(1927; dismantled 1935); Allan Spivey
Hall (1936-37), a dormitoryand classroombuilding;Ruel B. GilbertGymnasium (1937); FrankD. JacksonStudentActivity Building(1937);President's Home (1937); Hindu Temple and Garden of Meditation (1938);
Little Theater (1938);and SkatingRink(1939;laterR.O.T.C. Buildingand
other uses). See Thrift, ThroughThreeDecades,20-21, 25-27, 29, 43; "Citrus Grove Is Southern'sCampus,"LakelandLedger,9 Mar. 1941, 9A; and
Thrift, Of Factand Fancy,v, xii. On his campusvisits, Wright predictably
characterizedthese buildings as "boxeswith holes punched in them."G.
Bowdon Hunt '38, quotedin Thrift, OfFactandFancy,37.
5. Sourceson Spivey'slife include "Southern'sPresident,"LakelandLedger,
9 Mar. 1941, 6A; and HarrisJ. Sims, "LuddMyrl Spivey,"Journalof the
dent Spivey, 1939-1943, 2 pts., Spivey files, Archives, Roux Library, Florida
Southern College (hereafter ARL). Spivey edited and contributed to an
anthology, "Some Interpretations of John Dewey's Educational Philosophy," Bulletin of Florida Southern College,Lakeland, Florida 67 (Jan. 1951).
7. Jean E Block, The Uses of Gothic:Planning and Building the Campus of the
University of Chicago 1892-1932 (Chicago, 1983), 134-43.
8. Goodhue, quoted in Charles Harris Whitaker, ed., Bertram Grosvenor
Goodhue,Architect and Master ofMany Arts (New York, 1925), 27, quoted in
Block, Uses of Gothic, 161. See also Richard Oliver, Bertram GrosvenorGoodhue (New York and Cambridge, Mass., 1983), 137-43.
9. On Case, see William J. Hynes, ShirleyJackson Caseand the ChicagoSchool:
The Socio-Historical Method (Chico, Calif., 1981). See also William Dean,
American ReligiousEmpiricism (Albany, 1986). In 1938, Spivey brought Case
to become founding dean of the Florida School of Religion at Florida
parative religions, and in March 1938 Dr. Frederick B. Fisher, pastor of the
Central Methodist Church, Detroit, and a former bishop in India for ten
years, gave a series of lectures at the college's fourth annual founder's week.
An intimate of Jones since their student days, Fisher donated to Florida
Southern his collection of books on comparative religions and suggested
that oriental architecture be used in the foundation's new building. In the
college's student newspaper, he was quoted as saying: "You are to erect a
building that will be unique in America. ... The structure ought to have an
oriental flavor. Perhaps a group of minarets, an oriental dome, tapestries
and carvings, and certain niches for statues from Indian, China, and Japan."
Fisher, quoted in "Building May Begin within Three Months," Southern,
19 Mar. 1938, 1, 4, ARL. He argued: "It was in India [that] E. StanleyJones
evolved his great philosophy of religion and life. It was in learning to look
at life through the eyes of the Orientals, absorbing the true beauty of their
culture and philosophy that Jones discovered himself." If similar men and
to present Case with their Festschrift volume of essays for him, John T.
McNeill et al., eds., Environmental Factors in Christian History (Chicago,
women were to emerge from Florida Southern, "they must needs be broadened and enlarged through the proper assimilation and absorption of the
1939). See "Faculty Members and Wives Dr. and Mrs. Spivey's Guests,"
Lakeland Evening Ledger and Star-Telegram, 29 Sept. 1939, 6. Spivey and
best in every religion and the finest in every form of culture." Sam Womack, "Fisher Discusses Oriental Art in Closing Speech Sunday Night,"
Case invited major scholars to Florida Southern, such as the Methodist
bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, whose lectures there were published as The Ethical Ideals ofJesus in a Changing World(New York, 1941).
10. On Spivey's controversies with conservative Florida Methodists, see Rev.
Southern, 19 Mar. 1938, 1. Hoping to give impetus to adoption of his ideas,
before Fisher died on 15 April he and his wife vowed to present to the college the only Hindu temple in America. This elaborately carved structure,
made of 239 stones and standing twenty-six feet high, was typical of Hindu
E. H. Crowson, "The Betrayal of Southern College: A Study in the Technique of Modern Infidelity," 1933, typescript, Emory University, Atlanta.
temples for individual worship. A gift of Fisher's friends in India, the temple was dismantled at its original village and reerected in the college's specially designed garden for meditation overlooking the lake. See "Hindu
The denomination's regional weekly newspaper was the Florida Christian
Advocate (1886-1941) and its successor, the Florida Methodist Bulletin
(1941-70). See Ralph W. Davis, "A History of the Florida Christian Advocate" (bachelor's thesis, Candler School of Theology, Emory University,
1940). Florida Southern College held annual summer courses required for
ministerial candidates in the Florida Methodist Conference. Robert C.
Holmes '44, quoted in Thrift, Of Fact and Fancy, 36. Advocating that modern pastors practice psychiatry, Spivey taught a course in the subject for
social workers, ministers, teachers, and laymen. He had "made a special
study of social psychology at the University of Chicago and has continued
post-graduate studies in this subject for many years." See "Dr. Spivey Will
Teach Psychiatry Course at College," Lakeland Ledger, 11 Jan. 1942, 8A.
See also "Spivey Urges Pastors to Practice Psychiatry," Lakeland Ledger, 8
Sept. 1941, 3.
11. Spivey, in television program Sags aufDeutsch, with Dr. Juliane Jordan,
Florida Southern College, ca. 1960, videotape, ARL. Spivey referred to
Geneva's "Protestant War Memorial." On this structure, see "Le Monu'
ment de la Reformation Genbve," ConstructionModerne 24 (1908-9), 24,
27, 50, 51, 78, 492; and Scott Charles, All about Geneva (Geneva, 1985),
Temple to be Erected; Gift of Dr. Fred Fisher," Southern, 30 Apr. 1938, 1;
and "Memorial Temple Is Erected on Campus to Dr. Fisher," Southern, 17
Sept. 1938, 1, 2. See also "Hindu Temple under Construction on College
Campus," Lakeland Evening Ledger, 22 May 1938, 7B; and Haggard, Florida
Southern College, 70-72 (see n. 2).
15. Jones, in Florida Southern College. Hatton made an alternative unbuilt
design for the Jones Foundation building, with a central tower recalling the
unique crossing lantern of Ely Cathedral. This English Gothic monument
may have also influenced the Bok Singing Tower near Lake Wales, thirty
miles southeast of Lakeland, dedicated in February 1929. On this structure,
see n. 47 below. On Hatton's project, see E. Stanley Jonesfor Christian Education (Lakeland, 1938), M-00-15: Jones, E. Stanley, Educational Foundation, Proposed Late 1930s, Spivey files, ARL. In the film, aerial views of a
model of Hatton's design show tree-lined paths extending out from the
building's four arms. These
esplanades for the campus.
paths may have inspired Wright's later
105-10.
16. Tolle, quoted in Thrift, Of Fact and Fancy, 58.
17. Spivey to Wright, 11 Apr. 1938, in Pfeiffer, Wright: Letters to Clients,
166 (see n. 2). It is said that Spivey may have learned of Wright from a
12. The E. Stanley Jones Educational Foundation (Lakeland, 1938), 5, M-0015:Jones, E. Stanley, Educational Foundation, Proposed Late 1930s, Spivey
potential Miami donor, or from Harris G. Sims, an instructor in journalism
and editor of the local Lakeland Evening Ledger, who had read Wright's auto-
files, ARL. Overall, Spivey believed in Florida Southern's destiny, saying
early in 1942: "Here eventually will emerge a great university which will
be known throughout the world." Spivey, quoted in "Rilda Mounts Queen
biography and was familiar with his earlier work. Steven B. Rogers, "The
Academician and the Architect: Ludd M. Spivey and Frank Lloyd Wright
of Southern; Dr. Spivey Is Honored at Dinner," Lakeland Ledger, 3 Mar.
1942, 2. On Jones, see Martin R. Johnson, "The Christian Vision of E.
Stanley Jones: Missionary Evangelist, Prophet, and Statesman" (Ph.D.
thesis, Florida State University, 1978).
13. Jones, in film Florida Southern College:Insuring Our Destiny (New York,
1937), ARL. The impact ofJones's speaking tour was compared to the Great
and the Creation of a Florida Architecture" (paper presented at the annual
meeting of the Florida Historical Society, 20 May 1994), 4-5, ARL. One of
Spivey's faculty colleagues recalled that Wright's involvement "began during a Miami campaign for funds to build a Georgian colonial style chapel
to blend with the existing campus buildings. Dr. Spivey suddenly decided
that if he were going to build a chapel, he would get the most famous architect in the world to design it for him. In the midst of the building campaign,
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CHAPEL
531
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Southern. Case soon launched the quarterly journal Religion in the Making
(1941-43), which he edited, and produced two major works of scholarship,
Christianity in a Changing World(New York, 1941) and The Christian PhilosophyofHistory (Chicago, 1943). Spivey's fellow Chicago alumni selected him
Awakening in American churches of two hundred years earlier, which coincided with the origins of Methodism.
14. Jones, in Florida Southern College.Jones had stressed the study of com-
Florida Southern on his return. His tour was delayed until spring 1939,
after completion of the Johnson Wax AdministrationBuilding,in Racine,
Wisconsin, dedicatedon Saturday,25 March. On Wright'slecture trip to
England, see Donald Leslie Johnson, Frank Lloyd Wright versus America:
The 1930s (Cambridge,Mass., 1990), 231-77.
23. "Noted ArchitectForesees End of Big Cities," TampaSundayTribune,
22 May 1938, pt. 4, 2. Florida Southern claimed to be the first southern
college to applyto the FederalCommunicationsCommissionfor a shortwave radiobroadcastingstationin connection with its adulteducationprogram. See "Florida-SouthernApplies for Short Wave Permit," Tampa
Morning Tribune,19 May 1938, 10. Spivey timed his funding appeal to
532
JSAH
/ 63:4,
DECEMBER
2004
Methodists to coincidewith national,regional,and collegiate bicentennial
commemorationofJohn Wesley'sfoundingof the denominationin England
on 24 May 1738. "Methodiststo Observe200th Anniversary,"TampaSunday Tribune,22 May 1938, 7. The college staged a pageant about Wesley
with a cast of five hundred students and faculty on 23-24 May, when
Methodist leaders also attended the chapel's groundbreaking. "Break
Ground May 24th, for Jones Building; Program Will Fall on 200th
AnniversaryofJohn Wesley,"Southern,2 Apr.1938, 1, 2; and "LifeofJohn
Wesley Depicted in Pageant," Southern,21 May 1938, 1, 2. See also
"Methodists to Unite in John Wesley Service Here," LakelandEvening
Ledger,22 May 1938, 7B; "BreakingGround for BuildingHere Tuesday,"
and HarrisG. Sims, "Crowdof 3,000 Thrills to Wesley Pageantby 500 on
College Campus,"LakelandEveningLedger,23 May 1938, 1 and 2, respectively;and "GroundBrokenfor StanleyJones Building,"LakelandEvening
Ledger,24 May 1938,1, 2.
24. Wright to CharlesMorgan, 23 Aug. 1938, microficheno. M081E02,
Frank Lloyd Wright Archives,Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Ariz. (hereafterFLWA).Quoted in Rogers, "The Academicianand
the Architect,"8.
25. Spivey, quoted in "TampansRaise $10,000 to Open College Drive,"
TampaMorning Tribune, 17 May 1938, 13.
26. Wright to Spivey,20 Sept. 1938, in Pfeiffer, Wright:Lettersto Clients,
168.
27. Ibid. On Wright'suse of angles in ground plans, see Levine, "Frank
LloydWright'sDiagonalPlanning,"in Helen Searing,ed., In SearchofModern Architecture:A Tribute to Henry-Russell Hitchcock(New York and Cam-
bridge, Mass., 1982), 245-77; andJoncas, "'PureForm,"' 192-336 (see n.
2), who notes a parallelbetween the "occult symmetry"of Wright'splan
for Florida Southern and his unbuilt project for the San Marcos-in-theDesert Hotel west of Chandler, Arizona, of 1928-29. Wright's earlier
unbuiltprojectfor the A. M. JohnsonDesert Compoundand Shrine,Death
Valley, Calif. (1924-25) also had diagonal axes. On these projects, see
Levine, Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 173-85, 206-15
(see n. 2).
Wright later used diagonalreflex angles in his site plan for the Auldbrass
Plantation, Yamassee,South Carolina, designed from 1939. See David
DeLong, Auldbrass: Frank Lloyd Wright's Southern Plantation (New York,
2003), 46-89.
28. After Spivey visited Wright at Taliesin,he referredto Wright's"very
wonderfulhome."Spiveyto Wright, 23 Apr. 1938, microficheno. F28E07,
FLWA.
29. Wright, An Autobiography,in Pfeiffer, Wright: CollectedWritings, Vol.4,
124 (see n. 2).
30. Wright,"The TaliesinFellowship"(1933),in BruceBrooksPfeiffer,ed.,
Wright: Collected Writings, Vol. 3, 1931-1939 (New York, 1993), 159. See
William H. Harper, In the Valley of the Clan: The Story of a School (Spring
Green?, Wis., 1902?);Mary Ellen Chase, A GoodlyFellowship(New York,
1939); and Florence E Bohrer, "The Unitarian Hillside Home School,"
Wisconsin Magazine of History 38 (spring 1939). On its architecture, see
Joseph Siry, Unity Temple:Frank Lloyd Wright and Architecture for Liberal
Religion (New York, 1996), 22-32.
31. Parker had managed the innovative Cook County Normal School and
had created the Chicago Institute, which became part of the University of
Chicago in 1901. The institute had an experimental elementary school for
training teachers, like Dewey's laboratory school at the university. See Rockefeller, John Dewey, 230-31, 250 (see n. 5). Wright used the reflex angle in
his hexagonal house for the scholar of child education Paul Hanna and his
wife, Jean, in Palo Alto, California (designed 1935-36; built 1937-38). In
1924, Paul Hanna went to Columbia intending to study philosophy with
Dewey, who taught there from 1905 to 1930. In 1934, Hanna cofounded the
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he announcedthat he was flying to Wisconsin to ask FrankLloyd Wright
if he would considerthis monumentaltask."Donna Stoddard'37, quoted
in Thrift, OfFactandFancy,65. Spivey'svisits to cities for fundraisingafter
Jones'spreachingmission in the same cities were noted in "AlumniCouncil Votes to Build $50,000 Libraryas Part of Jones Foundation,"Southern,
23 Oct. 1937, 1.
18. Spivey,in SagsaufDeutsch.
19. Florida SouthernCollege press release, cited in Rogers, "The Academician and the Architect,"4.
20. Spivey,in SagsaufDeutsch.
21. Wright, cited in Thomas Mack, in Thrift, OfFactandFancy,69. Mack,
Professorof Citrusand Horticulture,escortedWright on a tour of the college: "Aswe walkedalong, Mr. Wright talked about the naturalbeauty of
the campusin terms of the lake, citrustrees, and rolling terrain.... It was
this naturalbeautyof the site which had appealedto him so much."
22. Wright, quotedin HarrisG. Sims, "FrankLloyd Wright to Plan Campus Buildings,"LakelandEveningLedger,10 May 1938, 2, repr.in Haggard,
FloridaSouthernCollege,74-75. Sullivanhad voiced similarthemes in his
Chats(1901-2). See especiallyChat 5, "AnHotel," and Chat
Kindergarten
Chatsand Other
"A
11, DepartmentStore,"in Louis Sullivan,Kindergarten
New
Isabella
ed.
27-28,
40; andJoseph
York,
1971),
(1947;
Athey
Writings,
Siry, CarsonPirie Scott:Louis Sullivan and the ChicagoDepartmentStore
(Chicago, 1988),53-57, 236-37. EarlierFlorida'sregionalidentityhad been
associatedwith the revivalof SpanishRenaissancearchitecturein its resort
hotels of the late 1880s, especiallythe Ponce de Le6n and the Alcazarin St.
Augustine, by New YorkarchitectsCarrereand Hastings for Henry Flagler. See Susan R. Braden, TheArchitectureof Leisure:The FloridaResort
HotelsofHenryFlaglerandHenryPlant(Gainesville,2002), 135-200.
WrightpredictablycritiquedHatton'sdesign as the antithesisof his own
aims,thoughHatton'sschemehad been publicizedto donorswhom Wright
was meeting as the college'snew architect.Recalling his remarksat a luncheon in Tampa during his May visit, Wright wrote to Spivey that he
"thoughtsome explanationof the picture of the building [by Hatton] was
needed,at the moment,andundertookto makeit by sayingthatyou andDr.
Jones, as things were in architecturein our country,were headedfor some
tragicend to your idealsas that design for a buildingindicated-but thanks
to your own acumenwe had you both safe in port from anythinglike that
now."Wright to Spivey,16 May 1938, in Pfeiffer, Wright:Lettersto Clients,
167. After his planswere set aside, Hatton threatenedsuit againstthe college for its lack of compensationfor his design, which had been the focus
for the initial fundraisingeffort. His lawyer,E. A. Bosarge,in a letter to
Spivey,14 Dec. 1939, noted that legally an architectis entitled to compensation"evenif the plansarenot used by the owner."Spiveyto Wright,4Jan.
1940, asked if Hatton could assist Wright on the chapel'sconstruction.
FrankLloyd Wright Correspondence(hereafterFLW Correspondence),
ARL.
In May 1938, Wright was preparingto lecture at the invitationof the
SulgraveManor Board in England, and anticipated beginning plans for
Hanna
John Dewey Society.PaulR. andJean S. Hanna,FrankLloydWright's
House:TheClients'Report(New Yorkand Cambridge,Mass., 1981);Joncas,
"'PureForm,"'289-93; andJaredR. Stallones,"The Life andWorkof Paul
Robert Hanna" (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1999), 42,
293-97.
32. Wright, "The TaliesinFellowship,"in Pfeiffer, Wright:CollectedWrit-
laterwrote of "thepower behindthe throneat Cranbrook,CarlMilles. Carl
is a sculptor-probably the greatest."Wright,An Autobiography,
in Pfeiffer,
Wright: CollectedWritings, Vol.4, 208 (see n. 2). On Milles, see RobertJudson Clark et al., Design in America: The Cranbrook Vision 1925-1950 (New
York,1983),241-52. On Cranbrook,see AlbertChrist-Janer,ElielSaarinen:
Finnish American Architect and Educator (1948; rev. ed. Chicago, 1979),
69-82. On FloridaSouthern'ssculpture,see Wrightto Milles, 19May 1938,
microficheno. M076B02, FLWA;Milles to Wright, 23 May 1938, microSchool of the Allied Arts," see Johnson, Wright versusAmerica, 45-64; and
fiche no. M076D01, FLWA;Milles to Wright, 27 May 1938, microfiche
no. M076D06, FLWA;Milles to Wright, 27 May 1938, microfiche no.
Wright, "The Hillside Home School of the AlliedArts"(1931), in Pfeiffer,
M076E01, FLWA; Milles to Wright, n.d., microfiche no. M080E05,
Wright: Collected Writings, Vol. 3, 38-49.
34. Wright, "The TaliesinFellowship(1933),"in Pfeiffer,Wright:Collected FLWA;Wright to Milles, 4 June 1938, microficheno. M077C08, FLWA.
AfterWrightvisitedMilles at Cranbrookin October 1938,Milles wrote to
Writings, Vol. 3, 164.
35. Spiveyto Wright, 20 July 1940, FLW Correspondence,ARL.
him: "I wished to tell you how happyI was to have you and Mrs. Wright
36. FrankLloyd Wright, in "FrankLloyd Wright,"Architectural
Forum94
here. You are certainly one of the few in the world who is through and
(Jan.1951), 105.
through artistfirst of all. Beautifulto be with you and listen to you. How
37. Ludd Spivey, "Good News! A Progress Report about the E. Stanley
rich your spiritis! And as companionshipwhat a woman in your wife with
so much artistic understanding. Sorrow we live so far away from each
Jones Educational Foundation," Bulletin of Florida Southern College (May
other."Milles to Wright, 18 Nov. 1938, microficheno. M085A01, FLWA.
1939), 3-4. M-00-15:Jones, E. Stanley,EducationalFoundation,Proposed
Late 1930s, Spiveyfiles, ARL (see n. 12).
41. On the outdoor chapel,see Thrift, ThroughThreeDecades,27 (see n. 2).
38. "WrightViews FirstWork on LargeProgram,"LakelandSundayLedger Servicesthere usuallyhad to be canceledin cold or rainyweather,although
and Star-Telegram,
20 Dec. 1938, 1. Wright said that "the buildingsare of
E. StanleyJonesonce spoke there in the rain. Serviceswere also held in the
a patternindigenousto Floridaanduniquelyadaptedto the workto be done
gymnasium. For convocations the college had used the nearby College
in them.""WrightVisits CampusduringXmas Vacation,"Southern,7 Jan.
Heights Methodist Church. "Southern'sAnniversaryFete to Get Under
1939, 1, 3.
Way with Tour of Campus,"LakelandEveningLedger,7 Mar. 1939, 1, 2.
42. On Methodist architecture,see KarenB. WesterfieldTucker,American
39. FrankLloyd Wright, quoted in Haggard,FloridaSouthernCollege,82
MethodistWorship(New York,2001), 239-56. On earlywork on Wright's
(see n. 2). Mies initiallyvisitedthe United StatesfromAugust 1937 to April
1938, and first met Wright at Taliesin late in 1937. Correspondence
chapel, see "Constructionof New Chapel to Get Under Way; Wright Is
between Wright and Mies in the Wright Archives does not pertain to
Architect,"Southern,17 Sept. 1938, 1; "Excavationof Chapel Site Is Put
FloridaSouthern.On Mies'splans for IIT, see Franz Schulze,Miesvan der
Underway;Is to Be First of 13 New Jones Buildings,"Southern,5 Nov.
1938, 1; and "Dr.Jones to Arriveon CampusNovember 26," Southern,14
(Chicago, 1985),218-30; Phyllis Lambert,"Mies
Rohe:A CriticalBiography
Immersion:Learninga Language,"and SarahWhiting, "Bas-ReliefUrbanNov. 1938, 1. See alsoHarrisG. Sims,"GroundBrokenfor E. StanleyJones
ism: Chicago's Figured Field," in Phyllis Lambert, ed., Mies in America Building,"LakelandEveningLedger,24 May 1938, 1, 2; and "JonesLays
Cornerstoneof New Chapel,"LakelandSundayLedger,27 Nov. 1938, 1, 2.
(Montrealand New York,2001), 222-75 and 642-91, respectively.When
From 1938 a low minor chapelwas plannedalong a walkwaysouthwestof
WrightfirsttouredFloridaSouthern,he reportedlyfumedwhen his student
the main chapel. Built in 1954 as the William H. Danforth Chapel, it sat
guide expressedadmirationfor his architectureas "modernistic."Stoddard,
66
n.
in
Fact
and
Thrift,
Of
Fancy, (see 2).
quoted
fifty for Sundayschool, vespers, small weddings, and occasionalacademic
Florida Southern linked to Wright's proposal for BroadacreCity of
classes. Storrer, Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 260 (see n. 2); and Dou1935, a critiqueof Europeanmodernisturbanism.BroadacreCity had been
glas E Hallman,"DevelopingAppropriateLiturgyfor Use in the Chapelat
FloridaSouthernCollege" (D. Ministrythesis, Drew University,1989), 12.
highlighted in the national publicity about Wright that had brought him
to Spivey'sattention early in 1938. Speakingto friends of the college at
43. Spivey,in SagsaufDeutsch(see n. 11). As he wrote to Wright: "Asyou
know,Floridadependslargely upon her citrus fruit. This year we are getTampain May, Wright equatedretrospectiveviews of society and culture
with historicistarchitectureand dense cities. Citing the automobile,electing absolutelynothing for the fruit. Practicallyeverybodywho is intertricalcommunication,and standardizedmachineproductionas "theforces
ested in this project is in the fruit business, and since we are not getting
"that
even
with
these
the
nation
to
a
new
claimed
life,"
anythingfor the fruitit is difficultto get money."Spiveyto Wright, 8 Nov.
driving
Wright
inventions man is still using 'horse and buggy buildings."'He "blamed
1938, microficheno. F32B05, FLWA.
44. Spivey, in Sags auf Deutsch.With her husband, Annie Pfeiffer made
Americaneducation for hanging too long onto tradition and not pulling
backthe curtainsof the future."Wright arguedfor spaciousdistributionof
major gifts to churches,to colleges in the United States, South America,
houses and other buildings over the land. "Noted Architect Foresees End
Korea, and China, and to homes for children and the aged. See "Chapel
ings, Vol.3, 159.
33. Ibid., 160. On Wright'sinitial plans from 1928 for a "Hillside Home
of Modern Art (New York, 1992), 41, 48, 61-62, 71-72, 87-88; Levine,
Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 218-20 (see n. 2); and Siry, Unity Temple,
234-41.
40. Wright to Carl Milles, 27 Aug. 1938, microfiche no. M081E08, FLWA.
Milles replied by telegram: "Please send plans will be glad to help you."
Milles to Wright, 31 Aug. 1938, microfiche no. M082A04, FLWA. Wright
Donor," LakelandLedger, 9 Mar. 1941, 9A; "Mrs. Pfeiffer Dies; Helped Colleges," New YorkTimes, 9 Jan. 1946, 24; and "Henry Pfeiffer, 82, Head of
Drug Firm," New YorkTimes, 14 Apr. 1939, 23. Mr. and Mrs. Pfeiffer were
persuaded to become donors in part by their friends, the Methodist bishop
Rev. W. E Anderson, and the wife of Professor Charles W. Hawkins, who
taught ancient languages. Haggard, Florida Southern College, 85. On 28 May
1938, Spivey wrote to Mrs. Pfeiffer confirming his understanding of her
gift of $50,000 to the college "to erect a library or any other unit you care
for in honor of Henry and Anne Pfeiffer." Annie Pfeiffer folder, Spivey files,
drawer 2-3, ARL. On 9 June 1938, Spivey wrote to Wright: "I have just
FRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT'S
ANNIE
M. PFEIFFER
CHAPEL
533
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of Big Cities," 2 (see n. 23). On Wright and interwar modernism, see
Anthony Alofsin, "Broadacre City: The Reception of a Modernist Vision,
1932-1988," Center 5 (1989), 8-43;Johnson, Wright versusAmerica, 33-35,
101-5; Terence Riley, The International Style: Exhibition 15 and the Museum
Fla., 1990).
48. "Southernto Open Chapel,"TampaSundayTribune,
9 Mar. 1941,pt. 3, 7.
49. Wright,quotedin "WrightViewsFirstWorkon LargeProgram,"LakelandEveningLedgerand Star-Telegram,20 Dec. 1938, 2. See also "Wright
Visits CampusduringXmasVacation,"3 (see n. 38). On Methodist church
plans, see Tucker,AmericanMethodistWorship,247. The Pfeiffer Chapel's
earlyrectangularplan also recallsWright and Dwight Perkins'sdesign for
the AbrahamLincoln Center'sauditoriumin Chicago of 1897-1903. See
Joseph Siry,"The AbrahamLincoln Center in Chicago,"JSAH 50 (Sept.
1991), 235-65; and Siry, UnityTemple,32-50.
50. Wright revivedthe New Theater projectof 1931 for Woodstock,New
York,in his unbuilt design for the theaterat FloridaSouthernof 1938. See
Drexler,Drawingsof FrankLloydWright,pls. 134-36 (see n. 2); Futagawa
and Pfeiffer, Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph, Vol. 5, 1924-1936 (Tokyo,
1985), 96-98; Futagawa and Pfeiffer, Frank Lloyd Wright; Preliminary Stud-
ies1917-1932 (Tokyo,1986), 180-81; FutagawaandPfeiffer,WrightMonograph,Vol.6, 116 (see n. 2);Joncas, "'PureForm,'"315-18 (see n. 2); and
Pfeiffer, Wright Drawings: Masterworks, 140-43 (see n. 2). See also Wendell
Cole, "The Theater Projectsof FrankLloyd Wright,"EducationalTheater
Journal 12 (May 1960), 86-93; and Frieda E. Bridgeman,"The Development of a Theatre Concept as Reflectedin the TheatricalArchitectureof
FrankLloyd Wright"(Ph.D. diss., Universityof Wisconsin, 1971). Hitchcock links the New Theater projectandWright'sKansasCity Community
Church(1940-41). Hitchcock,NatureofMaterials,101-2 (see n. 2).
534
JSAH
/ 63:4,
DECEMBER
2004
51. Petersto Wright, [Jan.1940?]:"Thereis quite a lot of Gunite [sic]work
done in Miami, a greatdeal of wall plastering,etc. It occurredto me that it
might be a fine thing to use on the big plain expanses on the chapel. I
thought we might be able to substituteit for plastering;we couldset up the
walls of blocks,therebyusing up the faciallyimperfectblocks thatwe have
been compelledto reject,finallygunningthe whole. This is the workthey
commonly employ the guns for in Florida and thereby they obtain a
remarkablyfine and rich sandplasterfinish,with a perfectionand rectilinear qualitythat are beyond the resultsof hand plastering."Microficheno.
F040B06, FLWA.
52. FrankLloyd Wright, Geniusand the Mobocracy
(New York, 1949), 60.
On Wright'sviews of Richardson,see JamesE O'Gorman,H. H. Richardson, ArchitecturalFormsfor an American Society(Chicago, 1988), 129-42; and
O'Gorman, Three American Architects: Richardson, Sullivan, Wright
1865-1915 (Chicago, 1991), 113-32. On TrinityChurch'splan,see AnnJ.
Adams,"The Birthof a Style:Henry Hobson Richardsonand the Competition Drawingsfor TrinityChurch,"Art Bulletin62 (Sept. 1980),409-3 3;
William H. Pierson,Jr., "Richardson'sTrinity Church and the New England Meeting House," in Craig Zabel and Susan Scott Munshower,eds.,
American Public Architecture:European Rootsand Native Expressions(Univer-
sity Park,Pa., 1989), 12-56; KathleenCurran,"The RomanesqueRevival,
MuralPainting,andProtestantPatronagein America,"Art Bulletin81 (Dec.
1999), 694-722; and Curran, The RomanesqueRevival: Religion, Politics, and
Transnational
Exchange(UniversityPark,Pa., 2003), 278-93.
53. Wrightto Spivey,13 Dec. 1938, in Pfeiffer,Wright:Lettersto Clients,170
(see n. 2).
54. "WrightLeaves Son-in-Law Here to Direct Chapel Work,"Lakeland
Evening Ledger and Star-Telegram, 24 Mar. 1939, 1, 5.
55. Wright to Spivey,6 Oct. 1939, andWright to Spivey,18 Apr. 1939, in
Pfeiffer, Wright: Letters to Clients, 177 and 175-76, respectively.
56. "Ready to Begin Chapel," Lakeland Evening Ledger and Star-Telegram, 6
Nov. 1939, 3.
57. "JonesSaysDemocracyDepends upon Religion,"LakelandLedger,12
Mar. 1942,2. One alumnusrecalled:"Iwill neverforget a chapelservicefor
which FrankLloyd Wright was the speaker.He approachedthe podium,
took his pen fromhis pocket,looked around,tappedthe pen on the podium
two or threetimes,andsaid,'The acousticsin here arebetterthanI thought
they would be!"'AlfredB. Vaught'52, in Thrift, OfFactandFancy,105 (see
n. 2). Anotheraccountnoted: "Acousticsof the buildinghave been called
the 'most perfect'of anyin the United Statesby a numberof architectswho
have inspected it." "SouthernTo Dedicate New Annie Pfeiffer Chapel,"
9 Mar. 1941,pt. 3, 7. Anothernoted:"BohumirKryl,
TampaSundayTribune,
symphony orchestraconductor,was unusuallyimpressedby the acoustics
when his musiciansplayedin the chapelbefore its dedication."Chambers,
"Innovationin College Chapel Architecture,"17 (see n. 2). The "sound
wells" in the chapel recall Adler and Sullivan's Chicago Auditorium
(1886-90), in whose designWright assisted,andwhose open rearstairwells
enabledsound to travelverticallybehindthe audience.Wrightand his successors afterhis death,TaliesinAssociatedArchitects,incorporateda variant of this idea in his Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium for Arizona
State University, Tempe (1959-64). See Joseph Siry, "Wright's Baghdad
Opera House and Gammage Auditorium: In Search of Regional Modernity," Art Bulletin 87 (June 2005).
58. Peters wrote to Wright:
I suppose by this time you have got the bell that I sent by express. The bell
as it is is the result of considerable experiment that I have been making in
FlonridaThis particularcasting was at first made almost perfectly spherical,
with only a very small hole at the bottom This we found gave almost no
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been to New Yorkwhere I met a woman who is giving $50,000 towardour
cause."Microficheno. F30E01, FLWA.Wright visitedMrs. Pfeifferabout
funding the small chapel, later donated by George Danforth. Wright to
Spivey,26 May 1942, FLW Correspondence,ARL. The story that Spivey
solicitedthe contributionfromMrs. Pfeifferas a lonely elderlyladyin a Ft.
Lauderdaleparkis probablyapocryphal.One version of this story appears
in Futagawaand Pfeiffer,FrankLloydWrightMonograph,Vol.6 (see n. 2),
104.
45. Tafel,AboutWright,133 (see n. 2). The PfeifferChapel originallycost
$75,000. Spivey to Wright, 16 Dec. 1949, and Wright to Spivey,20 Dec.
1949, FLW Correspondence,ARL.
46. Spiveyto Annie M. Pfeiffer,18 Dec. 1940,Annie Pfeifferfolder,Spivey
files, drawer2-3, ARL. EarlierSpiveyhad similarlyclaimedthat the chapel
would be "withouta duplicateon a college campusin the world."Spivey,
"Good News!," 2. Elsewhere the Pfeiffer Chapel was called "a building
unlike any other structure in the world." Sims, "Modernistic College
Chapel,"15 (see n. 2).
47. Spivey,"GoodNews!," 2. A separatecarillonwas noted in "Pres.Spivey
Meets with National Leaders;Returnsfrom Northern Trip after Conferences in Many Cities,"Southern,9 Oct. 1937, 2. Wright'sexteriorperspective of the PfeifferChapelwaspublishedin conjunctionwith its cornerstone
laying ceremony."Cornerstonefor College Chapel to Be Laid Saturday,"
LakelandSundayLedgerand Star-Telegram,20 Nov. 1938, 3A. Builder
CharlesW. Palmore,who assistedwith the PfeifferChapel,wrote to Wright
on 4 August 1939: "Severalweeks ago I was at DaytonaBeach and noticed
some buildings constructed from a beautiful golden sand that they have
there. The sandis a by-productof a crusherwhere they are preparingrock
for use in roadconstruction.The rockis a coquinaandsandformation.You
will probablyrecall the color of Bok Tower which was built largely from
this material." Microfiche no. F038A07, FLWA. Architect Milton B.
Medary designed the Bok Singing Tower, with sculptureby Lee Lawrie.
See EdwardW. Bok,America'sTajMahal:TheSingingTowerofFlorida(1929;
2nd ed., Lake Wales, Fla., 1989); Bok, TheMountainLakeSanctuaryand
SingingTower(Philadelphia,1971);and Marion Stephensonand Margaret
BokSingingTower(LakeWales,
Smith, Viewing,Understanding,
Appreciating
we cut off moreandmoreof the loweredge untilwe reached
tone. Gradually
the present state Incidentally,the metal mixtureused in the casting was
that which was determinedby ProfessorIchigawa'sanalysisof the "Great
Bellof Tokyo"whichis essentiallythe same as this, that is, an exteriorstruck
gong ratherthana bell proper,rungby an internalclapper
pus Buildings," Lakeland Evening Ledger and Star-Telegram, 10 May 1938, 2,
repr. in Haggard, Florida Southern College, 74.
60. In a letter to John Ramsey,Johnson Wax Company,Wright introduced
"Dr.Spiveyof FloridaCollege (we are designingnew buildings)who is anxious to see your building.Will you introducehim to Hib [HerbertJohnson]
if he is there?" Wright to Ramsey, n.d., FLW Correspondence, ARL.
Requested for $200,000, the Johnson Wax Building ultimately cost
$900,000. Jonathan Lipman, Frank Lloyd Wright and theJohnson Wax Build-
ings (New York, 1986), 75. Minimal weight on outside walls was noted in
Chambers,"Innovationin College Chapel Architecture,"17. Regarding
the outside walls, Spivey wrote to Wright, 15 Dec. 1938: "Now that we
have the four cornerspouredthere is nothing to do exceptthe curtainwall
which will not take many days."Microficheno. F33A07, FLWA.
61. "FloridaRock Used in Chapel Construction,"Southern,28 Jan. 1939,
1. See also "BlocksAre in the Making," Southern,8 Sept. 1939, 3; and
"ChapelIs Going up in Hurry,"Southern,9 Dec. 1939, 1, 4. Coquina-shell
stone blockhad been quarriedon AnastasiaIslandandfirstused for the fort
at St. Augustine,the Castillo de San Marcos (1672-95). In 1937, Florida
architectsMellen ClarkGreely and Clyde Harris restored St. Augustine's
GovernmentHouse (built in stone by 1713) to its Spanish colonial style
using coquina shell stone. See Elsbeth Gordon, Florida's Colonial Architectural Heritage (Gainesville, 2002), 78-94.
62. "Frank Lloyd Wright's Newest Creation," 34-36 (see n. 2). On Wright's
supervision of block experiments, see "Model Blocks for Structure," Lakeland Sunday Ledger and Star-Telegram, 5 Feb. 1939, 2A. On his earliest experiments with cast block architecture in southern California from 1922, see
Robert Sweeney, Wright in Hollywood: Visions of a New Architecture (New
York and Cambridge, Mass., 1994). Levine, Architecture of Frank Lloyd
Wright, 206-15 (see n. 2), notes experiments with cement block in designs
for the unbuilt San Marcos-in-the-Desert Hotel in Arizona (1928-29).
and Fancy, 34. Haggard, Florida Southern College, 73, noted student labor in
building Allan Spivey Hall in 1936-37. For the chapel, Spivey reported
thirtyor more differentwooden formsmade for castingblocks,all of which
were made on campus. Spivey to Wright, 20 June 1939, microfiche no.
F37D01, FLWA.Peters supervisedthe constructionfrom October 1939 to
January 1940, followed by Wehr. A native of Hungary,Wehr had been a
construction superintendentat Yankee Stadium in New York.Lloyd G.
Hendry '44, quoted in Thrift, Of FactandFancy,85. Peters reported:"Dr.
Spivey was most reluctantto place the operation in the hands of any one
person andinsistedon everysmallestpurchase,nails,wire, etc., for instance,
being ordered though [sic]the college office, i.e., himself. There is some
logic in this as he is able to secure in some cases phenomenal bargains
which, it is true, no regularhired superintendentwould or could. Nevertheless this works the greatesthardshipson the building operations,especially when the Doctor is sometimes gone for hours or days without
indicatinghis departurein advance."Petersto Wright, 1 Nov. 1939, microfiche no. F039C01, FLWA.
65. "Workto Begin Monday on BeautifulChapel,"LakelandSundayLedger
6 Nov. 1938, 3A.The colors of the glasswere described
and Star-Telegram,
in Sims, "ModernisticCollege Chapel," 15 (see n. 2). Wright designed
twenty-three-foot-longlanterns(not built)for electric lights to hang down
near the main skylight'send (drawingno. 3816.069, FLWA).Such simple
patternsof color in glass,ratherthan largenarrativestained-glasswindows,
were long a mark of less elaborateMethodist churches. See Westerfield
242 (see n. 42). The cornerstairsleadTucker,AmericanMethodistWorship,
ing to the balconieshave each step held up from aboveby verticaliron bars
that double as screenlike stair railings. They resemble the outdoor suspended stairsleading down from the main floor to the streamin Fallingwater.Wehr to Peters, 7 Feb. 1941, wrote of "railrods"for the staircasing.
FLW Correspondence,ARL. The set of red-paintedpyramidalsteps leading to the chapel'ssouthwestcorner(visiblein views of the west front)were
not part of Wright's original intention. Wright visited Florida Southern
College in May 1945 for the dedicationof his E. T. Roux Library.It was
probably following this visit that he drafted or dictated an undated tenpoint memorandum, wherein he noted: "On last visit to Lakeland, orders
were given to remove terrible West outside stairway to chapel which was
built without permission and entirely contrary to drawings. Recent photos
indicate these instructions were disregarded." "Florida Southern College,"
1945?, FLW Correspondence, ARL.
66. Sims, "Modernistic College Chapel," 15 (see n. 2).
67. "Chapel Is Like Old Theater," Southern, 20 Apr. 1940, 8.
68. "New Chapel Site of 56th Reopening," Southern, 21 Sept. 1940, 1.
Wright wrote: "The present Chapel seats 700 and may be crowded to nine
FRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT'S
ANNIE
M. PFEIFFER
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Petersto Wright,Jan. 1940?,microficheno. F040B06,FLWA.Annie Pfeiffer'sgift is noted in "College Gets Organ, Chimes for Chapel,"Lakeland
Ledger,24 Aug. 1941, 1. The tower'scrowningtrelliswas designedasa chime
resonator,whose sound proved so annoying to neighbors that the chimes
were removed."FloridaSouthernCollege, 50 Yearsin Lakeland,"cited in
Horwitz, "The West Campusat FloridaSouthernCollege," 62 (see n. 2).
Perhapsin keepingwith the college'semphasison studyof easternreligions,
one of E. StanleyJones'sfollowerswrote from Kashmirto Wright:"Iwant
to reportto you thatI havesent Dr. Spiveya dossalcloth fromIndiato hang
abovethe altar.It is of Indianpure gold thread.It is very old, and I thinkit
is verybeautiful.If you could designsome woodworkas a reredosto set that
off, I thinkit wouldbe beautiful.What other thingscouldI bringfromIndia
to put an Indianatmosphereinto the chapel?I want to makeit very beautiful but have the essence of Orientalquietnesspervadeit." W. H. Frakerto
Wright, 22 May 1939, microficheno. F037A03, FLWA.After the chapel
wasfinished,Dr. YeyhiHseih, a Chinesediplomatandthe Chairof Democracy lecturerfor 1942, said that Wright'sarchitecturewas "likean ancient
temple.When I steppedin here I knewthiswas a placeof worship.Clearcut
simplicitydone on so largea scalemakesone feel humbleandawed."Quoted
in Haggard,FloridaSouthernCollege,82 (see n. 2). Much the same idea of
embodyingsacredcharacteras found in non-Westerntemple architecture
hadinspiredWright'searlierUnity Temple. See Siry,UnityTemple,
202-17.
59. Wright quoted in HarrisG. Sims, "FrankLloyd Wright to Plan Cam-
63. "Recordof Agreementbetween Ludd M. Spivey,Presidentof Florida
Southern College and FrankLloyd Wright, Architect,for ServicesComplete in Connectionwith the New Buildingsfor FloridaSouthernCollege,"
29 Sept. 1938, in Pfeiffer, Wright:Lettersto Clients,169. In August,he had
said: "We are going to organize to build the buildings ourselvestogether
with the college." Wright to Carl Milles, CranbrookAcademyof Art, 27
Aug. 1938, microficheno. M081E08, FLWA.Cited in Rogers, "The Academicianand the Architect,"8 (see n. 17).
64. "StudentLabor Used in Building Chapel," LakelandLedger,9 Mar.
1941, 9A. Chambers, "Innovationin College Chapel Architecture,"16,
noted that the college was buildingWright'sdesigns "mainlywith student
labor supervised by skilled craftsmen."See also "FrankLloyd Wright's
ArchitecturalMasterpieceBegins to TakeShape,"LakelandEveningLedger,
8 July 1940, 2, 3. Since the college moved to Lakelandin 1922, there had
been a traditionof studentsworkingon the buildingsand groundsto help
pay their way throughschool.JamesD. Hurt '25, quoted in Thrift, OfFact
536
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75. Wright to George L. Tenney, 4 Oct. 1941, microficheno. F048B08,
FLWA.
76. "FrankLloyd Wright'sNewest Creation,"36 (see n. 2).
77. "Workon New Jones ChapelNow ProgressingRapidly,"Southern,13
Jan. 1940, 1.
78. Spiveyto Wright, 16 Mar. 1949, FLW Correspondence,ARL.
79. Peters to Spivey,5 Apr. 1940, FLW Correspondence,ARL.
80. "Southernto Open Chapel,"TampaSundayTribune,9 Mar. 1941, pt. 3,
7. The original glass doors at the side balconies' rear were convertedto
casementwindowswhen air-conditioningductswere addedto the chapelin
renovationsof 1957-67.
81. Sims, "ModernisticCollege Chapel,"15.
82. Spivey to Wright, 19 Oct. 1944. On 25 May 1945, Spivey wrote to
Wright: "Here are a few observationsI want you to rememberwhen you
makeup the plansfor the re-buildingof the chapel:(1) Youmusttryto keep
in mind that the sun in Floridafor at least nine months out of the year is
very hot. One of the sharpest criticisms that has come to me about the
chapelis the sun shiningdown on the audiencefrom the skylightduringthe
service. It is impossiblefor people to bear it. We have to stop the meeting
and askthe people to move out of the sun. Then, before the serviceis over,
the sunhasmovedoverinto anotherportionof the audience.I hopeyou will
devise some plan to take care of this criticism.Perhaps this can be taken
care of by certainkinds of glass. ... (2) The second thing I hope you will
do is to re-buildit in such a way that we can ventilateit, or else suggest an
air-conditioningplant.This, of course,cannot be done until after the war.
Let me remindyou againthat for nine monthsout of the yearin Floridathe
weatheris hot-very hot. When the sun beats down upon this concretefor
a few hoursthe inside of the buildingbecomes boiling heat."On 16 March
1949, SpiveyremindedWright:"Iwantyou to keep in mind that the chapel
is not usableduringeight months of the year in its presentcondition.The
heat is terrific.This year,we are planningto entertainourMethodistConference.We haveno other placefor them to meet other than in the chapel.
It is utterly impossible to have them there without the air-conditioning. ... With the proper air-conditioning in this chapel, we can use it the
whole year.Sincewe arenot planningto erect a largerauditorium,we must
find a way to put this chapelinto use." FLW Correspondence,ARL.
83. Wehr to Peters, 16 Oct. 1940, and 1 Nov. 1940, refersto "archcombined [with]flower box."Wehr to Peters, 26 Nov. 1940, wrote: "We are
getting readyto set up the form for the third bow tie or arch on the east
side." Wright to Spivey,30 Oct. 1944, referredto "panelwalls"between
"end towers."FLW Correspondence,ARL.
84. Wehr to Peters, 27 Nov. 1944, FLW Correspondence,ARL.
85. Chambers,"Innovationin College ChapelArchitecture,"17 (see n. 2).
86. Ibid. Steel rod sizes were noted in "FrankLloyd Wright'sNewest Creation," 35. Spiveywrote to Wright on 11 June 1940: "We need badlythe
schedule for large steel in the chapel."FLW Correspondence,ARL. This
may refer to steel girdersembeddedin the reinforced-concretestructure.
Such girdersappearin working drawingsfor the choir balcony floor (no.
3816.053, FLWA)and the cantileveredroofs on the north and south sides
(no. 3816.049, FLWA),which were built out one half a unit too far.
87. "Workon New Jones ChapelNow ProgressingRapidly,"Southern,13
Jan. 1940, 1.
88. On the dendriformcolumns,see Lipman,JohnsonWaxBuildings,51-62
(see n. 60). Correspondencebetween Glickmanand Wrightin the Wright
Archivesdoes not pertain to the Pfeiffer Chapel, although Glickmandid
help with the engineering of Wright'sCommunity Church, KansasCity
(1940-41). On Peters and Glickman,see Jack Quinan, "L'ingegneriae gli
ingegneri di FrankLloyd Wright,"Casabella52 (Apr.1988), 42-53.
89. Wright, talk to Taliesin Fellowship, published as "A New Sense of
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or ten hundredbut when it is so crowdedthe placeloses muchof its beauty."
Wright to Mrs. CorneliusVanderbiltWhitney, 14 Nov. 1944, FLW Correspondence,ARL. In renovationsbeginning in 1957, the chapel'sseating
was changedto individualtheaterseatstotaling475 with a centralaisleand
wider side aisles between the doors on the main floor. Hallman, "Developing AppropriateLiturgy,"10-11 (see n. 42).
69. Peters to Spivey, 3 Jan. 1941, FLW Correspondence,ARL. Wright's
detaileddesign for the pulpit appearsin drawingno. 3816.093, FLWA.
70. The original750 chairs,designed"to correspondwith the chapel'sarchitecturalstyle,"were made through a system of mass production. "Chairs
for New ChapelAre Being Builtat Southern,"Lakeland
Ledger,2 Feb. 1941,
2A. During the chapel'srebuildingfollowing the hurricaneof 1944, Spivey
wrote to Wright: "I hope that you will think againabout the chairsfor the
chapel.They arebeautifulbut highly uncomfortable.I believe thatyou can
design a chairthatwill be more suitablefor this chapel.Youmadethe chairs
15"deep, which is a standardchair,but the backcushiontakesup 2" which
leaves 13"depth for the body.This makeseverychairuncomfortable.I am
awarethat in the long run this will be your greatestproject,and I want it to
be a genuinememorialto you in the yearsto come. Pleasekeep in mindthat
I am deeply appreciativeof what you do, andyour fine attitude."Spiveyto
Wright, 25 May 1945, FLW Correspondence,ARL. Seats similar to the
original ones in the chapel are in the college'splanetariumin the Science
and CosmographyBuilding,completed by Wright in 1953.
71. Wright to Spivey,21 Nov. 1944. Request for this change appearedin
Spiveyto Wright, 2 Nov. 1944, FLW Correspondence,ARL. On the pulpit in Methodist churches,see WesterfieldTucker,AmericanMethodistWorship,242. Eventually,the Pfeiffer Chapel'shigh pulpit gave way to a small
centrallectern on a broadlow platformalong whose edges the communion
rail could be inserted (see Figure 22). This facilitatedthe Methodist tradition of the congregation coming forwardin groups to kneel at the communionrail. On Wright'sspeech at the chapelin 1948, see Pfeiffer,Wright:
42-43 (seen. 2). Wright'schapeladdressesof 3 March 1950and
LivingVoice,
25 Oct. 1951 are reprintedin Meehan, TruthAgainstthe World,159-71,
173-83 (see n. 2); Wright, "AnAdventurein the Human Spirit,"Motive11
(Nov. 1950), 30-31; and Pfeiffer, Wright:LivingVoice,79-81.
72. ByJanuary1948, sevenyears afterthe chapel'scompletion,the parapet
beam under the choir screen showed cracks.On checking its deflection,
Peters "discoveredthat the perforated screen above is not reinforced as
calledfor by our drawingsandthat as a resultof this the parapetbeamis carrying the entireload of the perforatedscreen (ratherthan relievedby beam
action on the part of the screen itself had it been reinforcedby horizontal
and vertical bars as shown in our drawings).I checked the design of the
parapetbeam and discoveredthat it is adequateto carrythis additionalload
(if actuallyreinforcedas per our drawings)."Peters to Spivey,23 Jan. 1948,
FLW Correspondence, ARL. Perhaps to convey the screen's structural
independence,Wright insisted that its base overlapthe parapet'sfront, so
that the screen would not appearto be resting on the parapet.He wrote:
"Screenblocksmust have exactlysamerelationregardingheight to parapet
blocks shown in drawings.They are shown with back blocks resting on
parapetandlowerpartof frontblockdroppingbelow parapetblockin front.
They should preservethis relationexactly."Wright to Spivey,6 Feb. 1941,
microficheno. F044C06, FLWA.
73. "The thick coquinascreenof the choir loft in front of the congregation
is a series of small patternsduplicatingthe floor plan."Sims, "Modernistic
College Chapel,"15.
74. Peters to Spivey, 14 Feb. 1941, telegrammedthat Wright "hasalways
intended platformfor choir to stand on. Platformshould be two steps one
nine inches high other 27 inches high both steps made movablein sections
for adjustmentor removal."FLW Correspondence,ARL.
college last year, and she is expected here for the formal dedication of the
organ in March." "FSC Organ Now Being Installed," Southern, 10 Jan.
1942, 1, 4. See also "$20,000 Pipe Organ Is Being Installed in College
Chapel," Lakeland Ledger, 11 Jan. 1942, 5B; and "Overflow Crowd Attends
Ceremonies in Chapel," Lakeland Ledger, 30 Mar. 1942, 2.
96. Florida architect George C. Keiser to Spivey, 16 May 1942, wrote of
"my intimate friend of long standing, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, with whom
I have discussed your new chapel at great length." FLW Correspondence,
ARL. Hitchcock wrote that "the executed chapel rises high, itself a carillon
and flower tower, and its oblique planes establish in the air over the site the
chief directionsof the flatpatternandthe generalplan."Hitchcock,Nature
ofMaterials,100 (see n. 2).
97. Sims, "ModernisticCollege Chapel,"15 (see n. 2).
98. Peters to Wright, 4 Dec. 1939, microficheno. F040A05, FLWA.
99. Among the originalworking drawingsof 1939, the companion to the
cross-sectionthrough the tower (Figure 31 in present article)is a longitudinal section-sheet 7, detail section of lantern, dated 20 October 1939
(drawingno. 3816.010, FLWA,publishedas fig. 159 in Futagawaand Pfeiffer,FrankLloydWrightMonograph,Vol.6, 115 [see n. 2]). Among post-hurricane drawings,sheet 7 correspondsto sheet X-4 (Figure 23 in present
article),a longitudinal section through the tower showing alterationsfor
rebuilding,which indicates reinforcing bars passing between the lantern
walls and bow-tie end towers. No such barsare shown on sheet 7 (a cause
for Peters'sconcern?),but there is a hand-letterednote that reads:"Later
detailswill show trellises,iron work, skylights,and also compressionstruts
between walls of lantern."Such a later detail drawingshowing "compression struts between walls of lantern"for the chapelis not known.
One studentwho worked on the building recalledthat when the towers "werehalf completed, a severewindstormcausedone of the block walls
of one of the towersto crumble.A hurriedcallmade to FrankLloydWright
broughthim to the campusto determinewhat had gone wrong. Although
Mr. Wehr had earlierexpressedmisgivingsabout the specificationsfor the
reinforcingsteel for the block walls,the architecthad firmlydisagreedwith
him. ... With his handsbehind his back,the famousarchitectpacedup and
down the constructionsite viewing the situation and finally issued a brief
edict as to the reason for the disaster. It was, he said, 'Poor workmanship!'... Work on the tower was resumedand completed.Poor workmanship may have been the cause of the initial collapse, but I can assureyou
that the reconstructedtowers on the Annie Pfeiffer Chapel contain substantiallymore reinforcing steel than called for in the original specifications."Lloyd G. Hendry '44, in Thrift, OfFactandFancy,85 (see n. 2).
After the tower lanternwalls had collapsedin the hurricaneof 1944,
one accountnoted: "It took an entire year,using electric drills and axes, to
clear the chapel of the huge pieces of concrete and steel. During the cleanup period, the builders discovered the enormous slabs had been held in
place with only three one-inch wide pieces of construction steel. When
Wright was approachedabout the lack of supportsfor the tower his comment was simply that he had been misinformedregardingFlorida hurricanes."Interviewwith Rev.WarrenWallis,FloridaSouthernCollege, Dec.
1975, quoted in Horwitz, "WestCampusof FloridaSouthernCollege,"63
(see n. 2).
100. On the Florida hurricaneof October 1944, see Jay Barnes, Florida's
HurricaneHistory(Chapel Hill, 1998), 164-66. Accordingto one account,
"hugeamountsof waterleakedinto the PfeifferChapel.Spiveysent six students to the chapel during the night to sweep out the water and keep the
chapel as dry as possible. After the hurricanesubsided the tired students
laid down on the pews and went to sleep. About six in the morning they
swept out the remainingwater and left the building.Shortlyafterthey left,
the flower tower collapsed. The two thirty-ton concrete slabs crashed in
front of the pulpit within three feet of where the students had been sleeping." Interview with Sam Luce, Florida Southern College, Dec. 1975,
quoted in Horwitz, "West Campus at Florida Southern College," 62-63,
which also notes Lakeland's then lack of a hurricane code for building.
101. Spivey to Wright, 19 Oct. 1944, FLW Correspondence, ARL.
102. Spivey to Wright, 23 Oct. 1944, FLW Correspondence, ARL. Spivey
noted: "When the hurricane hit the south wall at about 100 miles speed it
broke away from the deck and fell against the north wall. The south wall fell
through the sky light and the north wall turned over on the north deck. In
doing so it broke through the slab on the north side, and at the present the
FRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT'S
ANNIE
M. PFEIFFER
CHAPEL
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Space,"in OlgivannaLloyd Wright,FrankLloydWright:His Life,His Work,
His Words(New York, 1966), 155, 158-59. See also FrankLloyd Wright,
"Tenuity,"27 June 1954, in Pfeiffer,Wright:Living Voice,180-82 (see n. 2).
90. Aftertheir initial appearancein Adler and Sullivan'sAuditoriumBuilding, large-scalecantileveredfootings in Chicago appearedin Burnhamand
Root's Rand McNally Building (1890), Jenney and Mundie'sManhattan
Building(1890), andHolabirdandRoche'sOld Colony Building(1893-94),
in Chicago,
amongothers. See RalphB. Peck, HistoryofBuildingFoundations
University of Illinois Engineering Experiment Station Bulletin, no. 373
(Urbana,1948),25-26; FrankA. Randall,HistoryoftheDevelopment
ofBuildin Chicago(Urbana,1949), 119-20, 138; and Carl Condit,
ing Construction
The ChicagoSchoolofArchitecture:
A Historyof Commercial
andPublicBuildArea1875-1925 (Chicago, 1964), 91-92, 99-100, 122-23.
ing in theChicago
91. FrankLloydWright,"IsIt Good-byto Gothic?"(1958),in BruceBrooks
Pfeiffer,ed., FrankLloydWright:Collected
Writings,Vol.5: 1949-1959 (New
York,1995),227. See Donald Hoffmann,"FrankLloyd Wright andViolletle-Duc,"JSAH 28 (Oct. 1969), 173-83; FrankLloydWrightand Viollet-leDuc: OrganicArchitectureand Designfrom 1850 to 1950 (Chicago, 1986);
RichardEtlin, FrankLloydWrightand Le Corbusier:
The RomanticLegacy
(New York,1994), 47-48; andJoncas,"'PureForm,'"75-86 (see n. 2).
92. Wright later wrote "Chicago'sMidway Gardenson the Plaisancejust
below the cast-ironGothic of the RockefellerChicago University,"Genius
andtheMobocracy
(1949), repr.in Pfeiffer,Wright:CollectedWritings,Vol.4,
355-56 (see n. 2).
93. Transcriptof tape recordingof Wright'sspeech to the Society of Engineers of Baghdad,22 May 1957, 3, MS 2401.377 C, FLWA.On Wright's
developmentof a spatialideal for modernarchitecturefrom the mid-1920s,
see Levine,"FrankLloydWright'sOwn Houses,"in CarolR. Bolon, Robert
S. Nelson, andLindaSeidel,eds., TheNatureofFrankLloydWright(Chicago,
1988),64-66; Kevin Nute, FrankLloydWrightandJapan:TheRoleof Tradiin the Workof FrankLloydWright(New
tionalJapaneseArt andArchitecture
York,1993), 122-27; and Siry,UnityTemple,234-41 (see n. 30).
94. BruceMeservey,"FSCChapelIs DrawingCardfor Visitors,"Southern,
17Jan. 1942, 1. It was reportedthat "numerousnewspapersand magazines
in all sectionsof the countryhavepublishedpicturesand stories describing
the unusualcollege building.""New YorkTimes FeaturesChapel,"Southern,20 Sept. 1941, 1. Earliestvisitorsto the chapelincludedLeon V Solon,
Record."VisitorsfromDistant
designerandformereditorof theArchitectural
Points InspectChapel,"LakelandLedger,9 Mar. 1941, 8A. By early 1942, it
wasobservedthat"sinceits openingthe buildinghasbecomea point of interest for visitorswho have registeredfrom more than 30 states in this short
period."Chambers,"Innovationin College ChapelArchitecture,"16.
95. Spiveyto Wright, 4 Mar. 1941, FLW Correspondence,ARL. Wright
could not attend the dedicationdue to injuriesfrom an automobile accident. He first saw the finishedchapel in the winter of 1941-42, before its
organ'sdedication."Sincethe architecthas never seen any of the buildings
which have been erected from his plans,the visit will be significantfor the
college.""WrightWill Visit CampusThis Winter,"Southern,11 Oct. 1941,
1. "The organ is the gift of Mrs. Annie Pfeifferwho gave the chapelto the
538
JSAH
/ 63:4,
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for a vital social faith in democracy as a basis for both political and cultural
freedom. On Wright's journey to Moscow in summer 1937 to attend and
address the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Architects, see Johnson,
Frank Lloyd Wright versusAmerica, 179-2 30 (see n. 22).
110. "European War to Come, Dr. Spivey Says," Southern, 16 Sept. 1936, 1.
See also "Church Here Must Combat Communism," Southern, 3 Oct. 1936,
1; and "Professor Spivey Lectures Thrice about Russians," Southern, 17 Apr.
1937, 1. After an extended tour of Great Britain and Scandinavia in summer
1937, Spivey voiced his approval of cooperatives in these countries, saying
that the United States was too economically individualistic. "Dr. Spivey
Attends Conference Abroad," Southern, 18 Sept. 1937, 1; "Prexy Says War
in Europe Unlikely," Southern, 16 Oct. 1937, 1. After Hitler invaded Russia
in June 1941, Spivey initiated courses in Russian history, which he saw as a
subject "commonly ignored by most institutions." "Russian History Courses
Will Be Offered at College," Lakeland Ledger, 11 Sept. 1941, 3.
111. "Chair of Democracy Has Purposes Set Forth in Leaflet," Southern, 4
Feb. 1939, 1. See also "Dedicate Chair of Democracy Here Next Sunday,"
Lakeland Sunday Ledger and Star-Telegram, 5 Nov. 1939; "Open Congress of
Democracy Out-of-Doors," Lakeland Evening Ledger and Star-Telegram, 10
Nov. 1939, 1; "Democratic Meeting of Congress on Democracy," Lakeland
Sunday Ledgerand Star-Telegram, 12 Nov. 1939, 3A, 9A; "Enthusiasm Marks
Chair Dedication on College Campus," Lakeland Evening Ledger and StarTelegram, 13 Nov. 1939, 1, 3. The chair was to be occupied successively by
outstanding scholars interested in democracy. The first speaker was Dr.
William E. Dodd (1869-1940), a scholar of southern American history and
a specialist on Woodrow Wilson, who had served as American ambassador
to Germany from 1933 to 1938.
112. Editorial, "In This Temple," Lakeland Ledger, 9 Mar. 1941, 4A. Views
on a need to heighten Americans' commitment to democracy in the face of
totalitarianism appeared in "College Ready to Dedicate Chapel," Lakeland
Ledger, 9 Mar. 1941, 1, 6A; and "Chair of Democracy at College Attracts
National Attention," Lakeland Ledger, 9 Mar. 1941, 9A, 10A. In addition to
Dewey, the college's guests on Democracy Day, 1940, included Rev. E.
Stanley Jones, Helen Keller, Igor Sikorsky, William E. Dodd, and Rev.
Willard L. Sperry, dean of the Harvard Divinity School. Haggard, Florida
Southern College, 76-77 (see n. 2). Sperry (1882-1954) initiated the lecture
series on religion at Florida Southern, whose aim was to "emphasize the
purpose of the College to make religion an essential element in a liberal
education." His lectures of 14-19 March 1940 were published as What We
Mean by Religion (New York, 1940).
113. "Jones Says Democracy Depends upon Religion," Lakeland Ledger, 12
Mar. 1942, 2. See Oxnam, "The Future of Democracy," in Ethical Ideals of
Jesus, 114-35 (see n. 9).
114. Wright, quoted in Rogers, "The Academician and the Architect," 4
(see n. 17).
115.Wright to Spivey, 5 Mar. 1941, in Pfeiffer, Wright: Letters to Clients, 179
(see n. 2).
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north wall lies on top of the beams... The other partsof the structureare
sound-not even a crack.The toweris perfect.The latticeon top of the deck
is still up andnot damaged.It restson both ends of the tower."On the damage, see also "Roofon ChapelCollapses,"LakelandLedger,20 Oct. 1944, 1.
103. Spiveyto Wright, 19 Oct. 1944, FLW Correspondence,ARL.
104. Wright to Spivey,30 Oct. 1944, FLW Correspondence,ARL. "The
repairson the chapel should be completed long before Founder'sWeek,
Dr. Spiveyannounced.Mr.FrankLloydWrighthas alreadydrawnthe plans
for the repairsandthe workmenhavebegunworking.There will be no fundamental changes in the restoration, however, Dr. Spivey has askedMr.
Wright to replacethe skylightso that not quite so much sunlightwill come
throughandtherewill be a removablepulpit.The buildingwas completely
insuredand the materialfor repairingis alreadyhere.""Repairson Chapel
Are Now Underway,"Southern,5 Nov. 1944, 1. Spiveyurged the U.S. War
Production Board to ration enough steel for the tower'sreconstruction.
Rogers, "The Academicianand the Architect,"21 (see n. 17).
105. Wright [to Spivey?],4 Nov. 1944, FLW Correspondence,ARL. The
lantern tower approximatelyas rebuilt after 1944 is shown in another
undatedcross-section(drawingno. 3816.029, FLWA).The post-hurricane
roof structuralplan showing alterations (drawingno. 3816.024, FLWA,
publishedas fig. 156 in Futagawaand Pfeiffer,FrankLloydWrightMonograph,Vol.6, 114), correspondsto the original sheet 10 (Figure 24 in the
present article).In the ceiling south of the centrallantern,the post-hurricane roof plan has dotted lines markingeast-westcantileverbeams A and
north-southceilingbeamsF to be repairedor replaced,indicatingthatother
roof beams were undamaged.The post-hurricaneplan also shows four
altered skylightsaroundthe central lantern, and four scuppersat six foot
intervalsin each of the lanternwalls. Exteriorholes for the scuppersare
near the tower'sbase (not visible in Figure 1 in the presentarticle).
106. Kenneth E. Wischmeyer, president of the St. Louis chapter of the
A.I.A.,to Spivey,5 Oct. 1948, FLW Correspondence,ARL.
107. Spiveyto Wischmeyer,9 Oct. 1948, FLW Correspondence,ARL.
108. Wright to Spivey,20 Dec. 1949, 1, 5, FLW Correspondence,ARL.
The letter in the Wright archivesthat dealswith the lanternreinforcingis
Peters to Wright, 4 Dec. 1939 (see n. 98). On Wright'shonor, see "Frank
Lloyd Wright:A.I.A.Will Give BelatedHonor to World'sGreatestArchiForum90 (Jan.1949), 14;"ArchitectWright Given Gold
tect,"Architectural
Medal,"Architectand Engineer176 (Jan. 1949), 31; "Medalfor a Titan,"
Newsweek33 (28 Mar. 1949), 74-75; "A.I.A.Meets in Houston,"Architectural Forum90 (Apr. 1949), supp. 17; "Citationwith the Gold Medal to
FrankLloydWright,"A.I.A.Journal11 (Apr.1949), 163;"The Eighty-First
Conventionof the AmericanInstituteof Architects,Houston, Texas,March
15th to 18th, 1949,"Architectural
Record105 (May 1949), 86-87; andMeehan, TruthAgainstthe World,218-29 (see n. 2).
109. "Dr. SpiveySaysHitler Mere Puppet of MunitionsMen,"Southern,3
Oct. 1936, 1, 4. Dewey'smajorwork in responseto the rise of totalitarianism abroadwas Freedomand Culture(New York,1939), in which he argued
Illustration Credits
Figures 1, 2, 4. ARL. Figure 2, graphicnotations by the author;Figure 4,
Southern, 12 Feb. 1938
3816.031;Figure 32: drawingno. 3816.026. Figures5, 6, 10, 14, 15, 23, 24,
27: graphicnotations by the author;Figure 6: Hitchcock, Natureof Materials,fig. 406; Figure 16: OlgivannaLloyd Wright, FrankLloydWright:His
Figure3. Universityof ChicagoLibrarySpecialCollectionsResearchCenter
Figures 5-7, 9-12, 14-18, 21-24, 27, 31, 32. Copyright@ 2004 The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation.Figure 5: FLWA,drawingno. 3805.001;Figure
7: drawingno. 3301.001;Figure 9: drawingno. 3816.003;Figure 10:drawing no. 3816.001; Figure 11: drawingno. 3816.004;Figure 12: drawingno.
3106.005; Figure 14: drawing no. 3816.102; Figure 15: drawing no.
Life, His Work,His Words, 157
3816.009;Figure 17:photographno. 3816.040;Figure 18: photographno.
3816.080; Figure 21: drawing no. 3816.017; Figure 22: photograph no.
3816.073; Figure 23: drawing no. 3816.071; Figure 24: drawing no.
3816.094; Figure 27: photograph no. 3816.025; Figure 31: drawing no.
letin 373 (Urbana, 1948), 25-26; graphicnotations by the author
Figure 8. Photograph by Hedrich-Blessing. Chicago Historical Society,
HB-26823-B
Figures 19, 29. Photographsby the author
Figure 20. Inland Architect and News Record52 (Dec. 1908)
Figure 28. Ralph B. Peck, History of Building Foundations in Chicago, BulFigure 30. Eugene-Emmanuel
Viollet-le-Duc,
Entretiens sur l'architecture,
vol. 2 (Paris, 1872)
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FRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT'S
ANNIE
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