By Aimee Sullivan, Communications Intern
A special feature writing piece for the centennial of the Smathers Library
The rise of industrialization in America throughout the late 1800s brought public education to the growing middle class. By the early 1900s, eight public colleges across the state of Florida received government funding. The government became increasingly concerned about the money they were putting into unregulated institutions.
The solution was found in the Buckman Act of 1905, written by Henry H. Buckman. This legislature consolidated these smaller schools into four major institutions that still operate today: Florida Female College, now Florida State University; the State Normal and Industrial College for Colored Students, now Florida A&M; the Institute for the Blind, Deaf and Dumb, now The Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind; and the University of Florida.
The Governor at the time, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, appointed the first State Board of Education and Board of Control to restructure the education system in the state. Knowing these buildings would become the identity of the Florida education system, the board wanted the schools to display a sense of history comparable to universities established decades prior in the northeast United States.
The board selected two architects known for their work with educational facilities to submit plans for the new University of Florida. The participants included Henry John Klutho, who built using the “Prairie School” style of architecture, and William A. Edwards, who had become known for the Collegiate Gothic style.
The board named Edwards the designer for the University of Florida and elected him as the State Architect to design the campuses for several other state universities.
William Augustus Edwards was a southern gentleman who established a legacy designing institutional buildings across the Southeast United States. Edwards was the fourth of 12 siblings in the small town of Darlington, South Carolina. Born in 1866, the southern United States was transitioning out of the Confederacy. Despite growing up in an era recovering from the Civil War, William was described as “a pupil at St. David’s Academy at Society Hill, South Carolina.”
After completing high school in 1884, Edwards attended the University of Richmond for one year before transferring to the University of South Carolina, where he received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1889.
Edwards would marry his wife, India Pearl Brown, on December 21, 1898, raising a family with two sons and two daughters. As a young man, he donned a dark moustache and goatee, completing his look with perfectly quaffed hair.
Working alongside several partners over the years allowed Edwards to learn from established architects and develop an architectural style. His move to Atlanta in 1908 allowed him to work across states in the Southeast United States.
Establishing The University of Florida
Before the turn of the 20th century, the land that would become the University of Florida was covered with seemingly endless forests of pine trees and thick underbrush. Farmers tended to irrigated farms of neatly planted corn and cotton, a major factor in early Gainesville’s economy. As the area grew, a railroad was built, allowing merchants to buy and sell produce.
Alachua County established Gainesville as its central city as the population began to rise. In the 1880s, a red brick courthouse was built to signify the growth from town to city, and the architectural style took over the developing streets. As Gainesville became one of the most populated areas in the state, the city constructed paved roads, added several more railroad connections and upgraded to electric lights and telephones.
During the Buckman Act education reform, the board weighed the pros and cons to decide the locations of the new institutions. Cities including Ocala, Jacksonville, Lake City and Gainesville submitted bids to be the home of the flagship university.
Gainesville Mayor William Reuben Thomas led a campaign to advocate for the city to be selected. In a vote of 6-4, the State Board of Education and Board of Control chose Gainesville as the location for the University of Florida: a crucial decision for the city.
The University of Florida would absorb Lake City’s Florida Agricultural College and the East Florida Seminary, a theological college. Lake City’s school was a land-grant university, which received college funding for its agriculture programs.
Starting the process in 1905, Edwards designed the University of Florida with farmland and outdoor spaces at the forefront, as it had inherited the state agricultural college. Edwards arranged the campus to center around open pieces of land, like the Plaza of the Americas, with buildings on either side, leading students to outdoor facilities for research.
UF’s Architecture
The school’s grand opening on September 26, 1906, started with humble beginnings, as two buildings hosted all university necessities. Buckman and Thomas Halls, named after the Buckman Act author and influential Gainesville mayor, offered all 102 students and 15 faculty housing, classrooms, offices and dining.
Both buildings have a more simplified Collegiate Gothic style compared to the more elaborate buildings built on campus later. The windows bow out in polygonal shapes, giving the buildings a unique profile, and Tudor arches that come to a shallow point. Buckman Hall features a carved face above the main entryway, known as the “anguished scholar.”
The last two buildings Edwards designed for the University of Florida were the University Library, now known as Smathers Library, and the University Auditorium, opened in 1925 and 1926, respectively. These buildings are the epitome of Collegiate Gothic architecture, containing the most iconic elements in the style.
The University Auditorium was envisioned to be “the heart of campus” and had the most elaborate building on campus thus far. Robert M. Craig, Professor of Architecture at Georgia Tech, explains that the auditorium “resembles a monumental Gothic cathedral.” The three-and-a-half-story building leads your eyes to the spire, a grand, conical structure that sits at the top of the roof. The windows are decorated with detailed tracery, or designs that outline the large glass opening.
Gargoyles are a staple in Gothic architecture, featured in several parts of the auditorium. They act as functional waterways to protect from erosion or decorative details inside already elaborate spaces. Four gargoyles watch over the stage from the auditorium ceiling arches, plaster sculptures representing a student, athlete, musician, and engineer.
The last building Edwards designed for UF was the library, the largest building on campus at the time. To support the weight of the building, the design features buttresses, or additional weight-bearing structures, around the building. These reinforcements allow for the numerous windows, inviting the Florida sun into a typically dull space.
Professor Craig explains that Edwards “influenced the continued employment of the image by subsequent campus architects,” as the future designers of the school stuck to the collegiate Gothic theming. In 1989, the Historic District of the University of Florida was added to the National Register of Historic Places, preserving the buildings for their historic and stylistic contributions.
Though the campus architecture has stayed the same over the years of renovations, generations of students and faculty have been impacted by the school. Nowadays, Plaza is filled with students eating Krishna lunch, the libraries are filled with technology and the auditorium continues to connect people with the arts. Designed to architecturally mimic infamous colleges built decades prior, the University of Florida has created a legacy that goes far beyond a red brick exterior.
Sources:
https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/Community-Pages/Community/About-Gainesville/History
https://ufndnp.domains.uflib.ufl.edu/the-buckman-act-florida-universities/
https://archive.org/details/bwb_W9-DDT-862_3/page/596/mode/2up?q=%22william+a.+edwards%22
https://www.tclf.org/landscapes/university-florida
https://dekalbhistory.org/programs/hops-at-the-history-center-william-a-edwards-architect-with-robert-m-craig-part-ii/
https://ufsasc.domains.uflib.ufl.edu/building-the-university-auditorium/