Robert C. Broward, Arch 51, of Jacksonville, Fla., On June 28. Broward was one of Florida’s most revered architects and a protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright. During his prolific 61-year career, Broward designed more than 500 buildings. Among Broward’s signature buildings were the Unitarian Universalist Church of Jacksonville, the Jacksonville Art Museum, the Koger Gallery of Oriental Art and his own riverfront home in St. Nicholas, according to the Florida Times-Union. After he graduated form high school in 1944, he served in the Army Air Corps and then studied architecture at Georgia Tech. At Tech, he studied the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, who championed “organic architecture,” a philosophy of designing structures in harmony with humanity and the environment. Broward wrote to Wright, who agreed to have him as an apprentice. Broward spent a summer working on the construction of Florida Southern College in Lakeland, the largest complex of Wright buildings in the world. Broward is remembered for the effort he put into getting to know not only his clients, but the site, before he designed a building. “What I always hope for is that when I finish a design and it’s finally built, that it will look like it has always been there,” Broward said in a 1982 interview. “Even though it may look like a rocket ship, it should look like it has always been there.” Besides his work as an architect, Mr. Broward was an adjunct professor of design at the University of Florida, an artist and a writer. He published two books on Jacksonville history, 1984’s “Henry John Klutho: The Prairie School in Jacksonville” and 2011’s “The Broward Family: From France to Florida, 1764-2011.” Broward was a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, his profession’s highest honor. In 1989, the Florida Association of the American Institute of Architects honored him with the Award of Honor Design for lifetime achievement. In 2012 he was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.
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