Wright-designed planetarium at Florida Southern College reopens after restoration

Even as supporters of Florida Southern College celebrated the emergence of something new Thursday night — the launch of an architecture program — they treasured the restoration of something quite old.

Following the banquet at which FSC President Anne Kerr announced the new program, guests took turns touring the Miller Planetarium, one of beloved architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s many creations on campus .

The planetarium, contained in the Polk County Science Building, has remained dormant for well over a decade. The structure now gleams again, reflecting a rehabilitation project overseen by architect Jeff Baker, the college’s designated conservator of the Wright legacy.

“It’s like a breath of fresh air,” Baker said of the revived planetarium. “And it gives people a clearer understanding of what these spaces were and the way Wright conceived them. And, of course, this is a living, active campus; it's not possible to exactly restore all the spaces in the campus. So when you get an opportunity to restore a space, it's pretty special.”

The revival project was made possible through a $250,000 federal grant Florida Southern received in 2020 from the Save America’s Treasures program, administered by the National Park Service, and a matching grant from an anonymous donor.

Baker said he isn’t sure when the planetarium was last in use.

“No one remembers seeing shows in there in at least probably 15 years,” he said. “So it's been out of commission for a while and just shut down and dark.”

The planetarium, whose roof dome can be seen from Lake Hollingsworth Drive, occupies a relatively small space at the south end of the Science Building. The only planetarium Wright designed, it held a first program on April 7, 1960, according to school records.

It is one of several circular elements Wright bestowed upon the campus, along with what is now the Hollis Room in the original E.T. Roux Library (now the Thaddeus G. Buckner Building), the William Fletcher Theatre in the Ordway Building and, of course, the J. Edgar Wall Water Dome. The Science Building, actually a series of connected structures, is one of the final Wright designs constructed on campus, opening in 1958.

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Florida Southern completed a restoration of the building's exterior in 2021. That was funded by a $500,000 special category grant from the Florida Division of Historical Resources, matched by a contribution from an anonymous private donor.

The interior restoration began in October with the removal of equipment and clutter that had accumulated in the space, Baker said. His team hauled out 1980s-era computers, a cassette player and musical tapes and other detritus, and they dismantled partitions and a closet that had been constructed to store equipment.

The crew dislodged electrical wires and switches and reconfigured duct work and electrical systems before addressing the deterioration of the interior space.

“The most typical and challenging part of the project is block repair,” Baker said, referring to the signature elements of Wright’s walls. “Working with these Frank Lloyd Wright textile blocks is not easy. So we have a specialist come in that's worked on the outside of the building for us, and he’s really good. And so we had blocks custom made to match the original blocks — but not to fail the way the original blocks would have failed.”

Baker’s team repaired and patched wall cracks and replastered the ceiling. The architect, who specializes in restorations, supervised repairs to the seats, which he said are original to the space. He suspects that Florida Southern students made the chairs in campus, following Wright’s drawings.

Baker directed the repainting of walls to a neutral tone, befitting Wright’s preferences.

Entering the planetarium, a visitor first notices the dazzling shine of the floor, painted in Cherokee red, the rich hue Wright preferred to undergird his interior spaces on campus. The room holds two circular rows of bench seats, their Naugahyde upholstery roughly matching the color of the floor.

Whether by design or not, the planetarium creates eerie acoustical effects. A speaker standing at the center of the room will notice a pronounced echo.

Above, a domed ceiling perhaps 25 feet in diameter provides the backdrop for potential projections. An ancient-looking projector sat at the center of the space, but it lacks a crucial component and now serves as an anachronistic decoration.

“The great challenge now is to have another initiative to raise funds for modern projecting equipment, to allow it to operate,” Baker said.

The architect installed a set of LED lights, hidden in a rim running the perimeter of the dome’s base. During a preview Wednesday afternoon, the lights cast a rapidly shifting array of red and green tints onto the curved ceiling.

Telescopes stood in corners of the room, contributing to the spacey vibe. Though a planetarium is not to be confused with an observatory, an astronomy club sometimes uses the space, setting up telescopes on a nearby roof platform, said Stacy Walsh, the college’s associate vice president of marketing.

“People were very, very happy that this will be once again on tours,” Baker said. “And once the planetarium is up and running, that gives plenty of opportunities for the public to visit that building, just for events. And I think that will be really fabulous, to have a space that the public can just enjoy — children, school children, it’ll be fabulous.”

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13 .

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Wright-designed planetarium at Florida Southern College reopens after restoration