Architecture
Marsh & Saxelbye A beautiful Legacy
By Wayne W. Wood Jacksonville’s extraordinary natural landscape is complimented by its (often overlooked) manmade beauty. It is a surprise to many that Jacksonville has a greater number of outstanding architectural gems than any other city in Florida. Jacksonville has the most sites listed in the National Register of Historic Places and a quarter of those were designed by a single architectural firm—Marsh & Saxelbye. Made up of partners of Mulford Marsh and Harold Saxelbye, the firm dominated Jacksonville’s architecture from 1920 to 1930....
read moreLightner Museum
An Iconic St. Augustine Museum Celebrates Its 75th Anniversary By David Bagnall, Executive Director of The Lightner Museum This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Lightner Museum and the 135th anniversary of the museum’s historic St. Augustine building. Located in the heart of downtown St. Augustine, the Lightner has been an important part of the community since it was first built as the Hotel Alcazar in 1888. Founded by Chicago publisher Otto C. Lightner (1886-1950), the Lightner Museum offers an immersive...
read moreCalling Jacksonville Our Own
From Landmark to Destination By Laura Riggs Creating a persona that people fall in love with at first sight. They help define the region and the culture in ways that attract businesses to invest and travelers to visit. Whether manmade or naturally occurring, landmarks are the foundation for cities to forge an identity. Many of us travel the world to see landmarks. When we visit a city for the first time, landmarks help orient us to the destination and make the city memorable. We tell stories, share photographs, and dream of them long after we...
read moreTED PAPPAS : BREAKING OPEN THE BOX
By Tim Gilmore A building should relate to its site, respect its position and location, and take its cues from its landscape. Of all the things Ted Pappas learned from Frank Lloyd Wright, these principles would remain the most important. Since the 1960s, Ted Pappas has been designing some of Northeast Florida’s most interesting new structures and preserving some of its most historically significant. Through much of 2021, I walked with Ted and his son and business manager Mark Pappas, through a score of the architect’s most important buildings...
read moreHenry John Klutho
Jacksonville’s Greatest Architect By Wayne W. Wood On May 4, 1901, Henry John Klutho sat at the desk in his New York office, contemplating where he would find his next commission. The 28-year-old architect glanced at the copy of the New York Times lying in front of him and read the day’s main headline, “JACKSONVILLE, FLA., SWEPT BY FLAMES … 130 Blocks of Residences and Business Houses Destroyed.” Within two months, he had moved his office from New York to Jacksonville, determined to be a leader in the building boom that would surely follow...
read moreHistoric Holiday Shopping.
A look at downtown Jacksonville’s iconic department stores. By Kate A. Hallock and Emily Cottrell. Jacksonville Historical Society Five years after the Civil War in America ended, December 25th was declared a national holiday and, by the late-19th century, the marketing of goods specifically for that holiday was in force. The holiday was celebrated with Christmas cards, stockings filled with nuts, fruit, and candies and handmade wooden toys or knitted dolls. In the early-20th century holiday gift-giving included factory-made toys and...
read moreThe Future is Here
Borowy Family Children’s Critical Care Tower By Meredith T. Matthews Photography by Michael LeGrand and Chad Baumer “The future is here.” This was the statement by Michael D. Aubin, president of Wolfson Children’s Hospital and chief philanthropy officer of the Baptist Health Foundation, when, after years of anticipation, the new Borowy Family Children’s Critical Care Tower officially opened in April 2022. The Borowy Tower serves two main functions for Wolfson Children’s Hospital and Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville—the building houses...
read moreMaking a Good City Great
Largely ignored by ineffectual leadership, our urban center evolved into a wasteland of demolished buildings, leaving parking lots in its wake while city planners focused on haphazard suburban sprawl. Thankfully, many visionaries with unstoppable momentum believed Jacksonville to be a place on the river full of entertainment, culture, business, and green space that better reflected its citizens’ true potential. Even as city officials continually created new obstacles, these dreamers pressed on with a motto most often echoed throughout the private sector, “Jacksonville could be so great if ____.”
read more26th Annual Architectural Design & Build Projects 2022
Since architecture and design are both an art and a business, this annual issue feels like a seamless fit. Arbus takes great pride in serving as the platform for so many of the region’s best architects, designers, and builders to promote their work.
Take a look and discover this year’s most exciting changes to our built environment.
Be inspired.
read moreThe Art of Commissioning
Almost everyone is familiar with an artist’s commission for a painting, sculpture, wedding gown, or bespoke jewelry. You discover an artist’s work who you truly love and want an original piece that no one else has. More often an exhaustive search takes place to find that perfect piece that, in your mind, does not exist. Yet.
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