A Landslide and a Masterpiece: the Disassembly of Wayfarer’s Chapel

A Landslide and a Masterpiece: the Disassembly of Lloyd Wright’s Wayfarer’s Chapel

Katie Horak, Principal at Architectural Resources Group

6:00pm-7:00pm

McCulloch Pavilion, 265 S. Orange Ave, Sarasota, FL 34236

Parking available in the lot East of the McCulloch Pavilion & South of Morrill Street

BACKGROUND

In the late 1920s, leaders of the Swedenborgian church envisioned a place of exquisite beauty on a coastal bluff where wayfarers could stop, rest, and give thanks. It would take more than twenty years for this dream to come to fruition, ultimately by the hand of architect and landscape architect, Lloyd Wright. His vision of a “tree chapel” aligned with the Swedenborgian emphasis on harmony between God’s natural world and the inner world of mind and spirit. The cornerstone was laid in 1949, the chapel completed in 1951, and the bell tower, colonnade, annex building, and designed landscape completed a few years later.

Shortly after construction, an ancient landslide was discovered, causing limited land movement beneath the chapel–just a few inches per year. In 2023, the landslide began to move at an unprecedented and alarming rate, causing the chapel’s glass and stone cladding to crack, and the earth to buckle underneath it. In May 2024, with the earth moving six to nine inches per week, a team of preservation architects, engineers, and contractors mobilized to disassemble the chapel much in the way it was assembled, one piece at a time, with each documented and labeled to ensure accurate reassembly.

Join Katie Horak, Principal at Architectural Resources Group in a discussion about the disassembly process, considerations for reconstruction, and what this project can teach us about preparation for climate-related impacts to historic buildings.

ABOUT KATIE HORAK

Katie Horak is an architectural historian and principal at Architectural Resources Group, an architecture and planning firm that focuses on the historic built environment. Her work at ARG ranges from rehabilitation projects on some of Los Angeles’s most recognizable landmarks to large-scale planning projects. In addition, Katie is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at USC, where she teaches graduate-level courses in the Heritage Conservation program. She is the founding President of the Southern California Chapter of Docomomo US and the current President of Docomomo US.

PHOTO CREDITS:

Feature Image #1: Julius Shulman, photographer, J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute

Feature Image #2: Julius Shulman, photographer, J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute

Feature Image #3: Architecture Resources Group

Feature Image #4: Architecture Resources Group

Feature Image #5: Architecture Resources Group

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