Annie Pfeiffer Chapel, Legoland - Lake Wales, FL - LEGO Sculptures and Models on Waymarking.com

"The original campus was in an orange grove on this hill overlooking Lake Hollingsworth, but the trees are gone now. Too bad, because the campus was glaring and hot even in April, especially with the concrete block buildings.

The Annie Pfeiffer Chapel was the first of Wright's buildings to be constructed at Florida Southern College. At its dedication, Annie Pfeiffer (wife of the founder of Pfeiffer Chemical Company) reportedly said, "They say it is finished," perhaps in reference to the metal bars forming a spire or steeple. Sometimes the chapel is referred to as "the bicycle rack."

FSC students provided labor for the construction of the Frank Lloyd Wright buildings on campus, including this chapel. Natural light inside the chapel comes primarily from the large skylight above. The walls are made of a special concrete block called tapestry block. The tapestry blocks have small squares of colored glass embedded in them, creating moving spots of red, blue, and amber on a sunny day.

he book Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright at Florida Southern College (Arcadia 2007) (http://books.google.com/books?id=EZi_CEycn2cC&printsec=frontcover&dq=frank+lloyd+wright+chapel+florida#v=onepage&q=frank%20lloyd%20wright%20chapel%20florida&f=false ) contains fascinating photographs of the chapel's construction and traces some of the changes in the building's interior and exterior over the years. Some of the major changes came after a 1944 hurricane shattered the skylight and parts of the building collapsed. During reconstruction the tapestry blocks above the first floor were stuccoed on the exterior to make them more weather proof." (from (visit link) )

"The landmark Pfeiffer Chapel was the first building erected on campus (completed 1941) and was built exclusively with unpaid student labor (photos above and below). Spivey pushed this project through so that he could have something to show prospective donors and subscribers. Generous contributor Annie Pfeiffer, widow of the founder of Pfeiffer Chemical Company, was a bit taken aback by the avant-garde architecture of the chapel which bears her name. During her speech delivered at the opening, she said, "They tell me it is complete," a reference to the unfinished look of the metal grid that sits atop the tower. In 1941 Pfeiffer was awarded an honorary doctorate for her generosity. She even donated the pipe organ, manufactured by the Reuter company in Kansas, that stood in the balcony from the 1940s until the late 1970s.

The Pfeiffer Chapel is the only Wright building on campus of any height; all the rest are uniformly low slung. In many ways the exterior of this structure echoes his landmark Pennsylvania private residence, Falling Water. Wright designed one-off sand colored molded concrete blocks for the lower exterior surfaces of the Pfeiffer chapel. Each one had to be crafted by hand, and many of them contained recessed square pieces of stained glass.

Note: Florida Southern still owns the original molds for these unique building blocks. The architects of the new McKay building that houses the Wright archives borrowed two of them to craft identical new ones for use in their 2009 project, which sits beside an original Wright campus building, thus affording a transition relating to the historic cluster of land-marked structures." (from (visit link) )

Address and Hours: 1 Legoland Way Winter Haven, FL (877) 350-5346 For hours: http://florida.legoland.com/Plan/hours/ Admission Fee (if any): yes Website for more information: [Web Link]

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