Things to do / Travel Guide
There are a number of buildings famous for their architecture in the Central Florida region. Perhaps the most famous building in the entire Gulf Coast area is the old Tampa Bay Hotel in Tampa, which today houses the Henry B. Plant Museum and is part of the University of Tampa. Built in 1891 by Henry Plant, the railroad magnate who helped develop Tampa, this distinctive and unique edifice is a landmark not only for its size - it is visible from the whole city - but also for of its very decorative and prominent Moorish minaret-style towers.
A structure that is unique not only to the region, but also to the country, is Ca d'Zan (House of John) in Sarasota. This very impressive and distinct mansion was built by the circus entrepreneur, John Ringling, in the early 1920s. Ca d'Zan 9 is an example of Italian gothic style architecture and features Venetian-Arabic windows as well as a 60-foot tower. Today, this very impressive building houses Mr. Ringling's equally impressive collection of art. The collection contains over 10,000 objects, from ancient to contemporary, including paintings, posters, decorative art pieces, and sculptures.
Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the most famous American architects ever, designed 12 buildings located throughout the Florida Southern College campus in Lakeland. This single-largest grouping of Wright-designed buildings in the world was constructed in his modern style in the late 1930s.
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