Question: Frank Lloyd Wright’s planetarium at Florida Southern College was originally designed to be what kind of building?
Answer: An observatory.
Frank Lloyd Wright first imagined the domed building at Florida Southern College as a place to look at the stars directly. According to Smithsonian, that plan was scrapped because of the Florida sun, and the space became a planetarium.
Built between 1954 and 1958, it held its first show in 1960. It’s the only planetarium Wright ever built and one of 13 Wright structures on the Lakeland campus, the largest single-site collection of his work in the world.
After sitting dark for more than two decades, the planetarium reopened to the public this fall, with its original circular seating restored and a new digital projection system.
