Southwest Christian Seminary - Part 1

In 1949 Frank Lloyd Wright designed a large complex using his own principles of Organic-Architecture and building technique learned in the construction of his own Taliesin West (1937, Scottsdale, AZ) for the Southwest Christian Seminary in Glendale, AZ. Because of financial hardship on the part of the Seminary, the complex was never constructed in Wright's lifetime. Reverend William Speas Boice of the First Christian Church in Phoenix was a follower of Wright's architecture since his days as a soldier in World War II, and though Wright had been dead for over a decade Reverend Boice wanted his new congregational building to be built using the plans for the Southwest Christian Seminary. After a rigorous petition to the architect' s widow Olga Lloyd Wright and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Reverend Boice and the First Christian Church broke ground for the new building in 1970. It was completed in 1972 and the bell tower added in 1978, twenty-nine years after it was originally designed.

Photo Copyrights: Ben Pearson