Lakeland audiotours

Florida Southern College in Lakeland holds the largest single-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in the world. Wright designed 18 structures for the campus between 1938 and 1958, of which 12 were built, connected by a system of covered walkways he called esplanades that snake between the buildings in pale concrete. He called the project 'Child of the Sun,' and the buildings do seem to gather the Florida light deliberately, their horizontal lines and textured surfaces catching shadow in ways that change through the day.

Lakeland sits among 38 lakes in Polk County in central Florida, far enough from the coast to avoid the tourist infrastructure that defines much of the state.

The downtown around Lake Mirror was developed in the 1920s boom years and retains a collection of Beaux-Arts and Mediterranean Revival buildings from that period. Lake Mirror Park, with its promenade and classical revival colonnade, was designed in 1927 and is the kind of civic space that cities sometimes build in moments of genuine ambition.