Wright received this commission during his stay in Arizona when the construction of Taliesin West started. The commission consisted in developing a master plan for the Florida Southern College, comprising 18 buildings of which only 10 were finally built –and not all of them by Wright. The process was arduous and characterized by a continuous lack of payment on the client’s behalf or delays in the delivery of drawings by Wright.

The campus is structured along a series of axes drawn over an orthogonal grid. Diagonals intersect them at 30 and 60 degrees creating tension in the scheme up to a point that they disturb the perception of the original array. In the centre of the master plan we find Anne Pfeiffer Chapel, the building plan has two important symmetry axes emphasized by the symbolic presence of the tower and the position of the four access points in the four corners. The other oblique orientation axes of the campus –escorted in their unfolding by pergolas that bring to mind shadowed walks of geometrized trees– connect, by way of shorter segments, the most important buildings. As it happens in Taliesin West, the merely visual character of the diagonal transcends into a strong physical presence.

Typologically, the Annie Pheiffer Chapel auditorium is an evolved version of the Unity Temple auditorium (1904-6); they both achieve a very intimate relationship between the orator and the audience. As in the Unity Temple luminaries, the coloured glass panels inserted inside the concrete blocks perforations of the chapel’s lateral walls add a touch of pagan happiness. A metallic skeleton tower supports a skylight, an inclined weave that does not seem to rest on any specific support, appearing to be cantilevered.
While the first buildings of the college are caught in between the architecture of the textile block and the geometric three-dimensional net, the more indefinite modulation of the last brings us to the circular matrix that characterizes his last works. The net that composes the chapel comprises two parts: A and B; combined between them: A-B-A. Figure A takes the form of a rectangle, while B takes the form of a regular hexagon, resulting in a three-dimensional web that can be configured both from a prismatic polyhedron and from a hexagon, depending on the architectural moment and the adjustment to space. Although the results of the Chapel are not formally radical, Wright attains to elaborate them more profoundly in later works such as the Beth Solomon Synagogue. The fundamental building system is the textile block, in addition, the tower exposed iron structures and textured concrete finishes, as well as the lateral cantilevers and wood frames of the Chapel can be found in other works by the architect. The triangular shaped structures are exposed, they are reinforced by a secondary rhythm of parallel profiles working both as joists and frames for the skylight glasses.

Even though the outer view or the drawings seem to confirm the chapel as a building of a noticeably orthodox plan, the interior perception is more complex. It is ruled by the crossing of two great axes that reproduce the three-dimensioned Latin cross. These axes are composed by the two prismatic lateral volumes that can be related with the transept and the volume created by the light coming from the skylight, identified with the classic nave. Although the volumes of these spaces that cross each other seem equivalent, the power of the light coming from above enhances the vertical space in such way that it gains greater importance and the audience attention is directed towards the orator position.

(F.A.P.)