The Discipline of Nature: Architect Alfred Browning Parker in Florida

HistoryMiami Museum, Florida | Sept, 2016 --- Feb, 2017

Among the modernist architects who transformed postwar Florida into a laboratory of regionalist architecture, Alfred Browning Parker was an iconoclast. He shared the
conviction, common among young architects in Miami, that an authentic regional architecture had not yet been ‘invented.’ Inspired by thve power of place and eager to
innovate, Parker became a disciple of American traditions and the region’s foremost organic architect. Extrapolating from Frank Lloyd Wright’s position on
the architect’s role in society, Parker believed that architecture could be a harbinger of an authentic regional culture in Miami. He developed an architectural syntax
that emphasized the centrality of human endeavor, in which design integrity was transcendent. Parker’s position derived from a deep respect for the earth and
its resources, as well as a moral and aesthetic interest in the power of nature as a vital and rational force. He saw ecology as a guide to understanding resources and their
interaction, and also as a discipline for ethical thinking capable of shaping an architectural response.

All photos by Robin Hill.

© 2022 Shulman + Associates