Tag Archives: Memphis Wood

Recalling Book Burnings at Jacksonville University

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The 1970 Jacksonville University yearbook, the Riparian, was a collector’s item before the year was out. That fraternity members burned the book helped. So did the national news of JU’s president’s threatening to withhold the editor’s diploma. Half a century later, JU grads treasure it as an almost sacred object.

Robert Broward’s Favorite Design: The Unitarian Universalist Church of Jacksonville

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Recuperating from a nearly fatal car crash, architect Robert Broward drew the first sketches of his design for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Jacksonville in his hospital bed. Near the end of his life, he said it was his favorite design.

The Evolution of Broward’s Butterfly House

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When Robert Broward designed his famous Mid-Century Modern “Butterfly House” in 1957, he used rainwater and sunlight as materials. In the early ’60s, Fred Nachman added pecky cypress and clad the house in Gothic iron. When Kathryn Stater purchased it in 2016, it was on the verge of demolition. Now it’s more itself than it’s ever been.