It was just me and the building I went to see. No one else was around. I was at Florida Southern
College in Lakeland standing in front of the Annie Pfeiffer Chapel Frank Lloyd Wright had designed in the
late thirties. He later designed a small wedding chapel adjacent to it. Wright designed two other buildings
besides the chapels, and also a fountain, all of which are interwoven with an architecturally complimenting
breezeway.
The more I looked at the chapel, the more I noticed it resemblance to Falling Water. Having
designed the chapel not long after Falling Water, its no surprise the two look similar. The beige color of the
concrete, the deep red of the steel, and the unnatural cantilevers in the two buildings mimic one another
exactly. There are some obvious differences though. The chapel has almost perfect symmetry, differing only
at the base, near the entrances on either side. On one side a cascading set of low pitched stairs, painted red.
On the other, a low wall in the native beige that nestles an alcove. The thing that differs the most is the
large center of the chapel, comprised of geometrically shaped poured concrete, topped with a steel
framework of a gabled roof. Besides being a Wright building, this feature alone makes it undoubtedly
unique.
Being the only one on a deserted campus limits the amount of access one has to the inside of any
buildings there, but I found something else to fill the void left by not being able to enjoy the interiors, an
interesting story. As I was admiring the detail of the odd sized, custom cast concrete blocks speckled with
tiny cubes of colored glass I noticed an old man doing the same. Come to find out he wasn't admiring, but
rather reminiscing. He told me that he had helped build the chapel, and had met Wright himself.
The man told me about Wright's drawings being on a three foot grid system marked only with
exterior dimensions. He told me of the custom cast, nine inch by thirty-six inch concrete blocks, which he
claimed were the work of only six men. He also claimed they too built and poured the forms of the
breezeways' intricate columns. He told me about the thousands of hand placed glass pieces in all of the
blocks and smirked when he told me how long it took to get them all in place. He explained the purpose of
the four inch rise and twelve inch run of all the steps. He spoke about almost every intricate detail
. When I
asked about the center, he told me Wright designed it to look like a bowtie. He explained to me that, to
Wright, the bowtie represented music, because when Wright would go listen to music he would dress for
the occasion wearing a suit and bowtie. In fact, I was told if one was to go anywhere like that with Mr.
Wright, they too were to have on a bowtie.
The old man explained that Wright was a very straight forward, sophisticated man; a perfectionist
He had things his way, the right way, or not at all. Whether or not the olds man's enjoyable and interesting
stories were true, I had no doubt that Wright was straight forward and sophisticated; and if his work,
especially the Annie Pfeiffer Chapel, speaks anything for who he was as a man, it says nothing less than
perfection. After experiencing the building and hearing those wondrous tales of its birth, from someone
who had claimed to be a part of it, I left there feeling as though I had taken a little piece of it with me.
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