I don’t think there are enough words in the dictionary to describe how absolutely disappointed I was today. With last week’s site visit still fresh in my mind, I eagerly anticipated being back in Jacksonville, Florida for the continuation of our study. I vividly recall my delight at being greeted by HEAT and would have been dressed in shorts and a tank top had our professor not structured the day. That turned out to be a blessing as not only was it COLD but also the wind was so intense I had to hold on for dear life and pray that I wouldn’t be blown away! My feelings were bittersweet when I left as the sun that constantly taunted me all day finally decided that it would shine and accommodate sporadic moments of the unbearable wind.
Trying to find one word to describe downtown Jacksonville’s architecture proved to be a challenge. It had such a peculiar mix of everything; from odd shaped out of scale buildings juxtaposed against renaissance styled architecture to monumental contemporary sculptures [seemingly] randomly placed around the downtown area. Amidst the confusion I could pick out areas that I thought were successful. In a way, I thought of it as Savanna meets Las Vegas.
Our site however, is further east of the downtown area; right in-front of the river. I absolutely love the site. It is quite large and we will have to design and landscape everything – a challenge that I look forward to and hope to keep you updated on as we progress.
We started off with a museum tour of MOCA – Museum of Contemporary Arts and got a first hand look at what takes place during a new installation. Note taking was the order of my day and even more so …. capturing via Austin. Thought I’d share a few of my favs from the day.
View from the site
Views from the site
I really appreciate areas like this!
Sure looks like they dug up Broughton Street and placed it here!
Just chilling
I love the detail given to street furniture. This is just one of the many
Can you guess what this building is?
Thanks for taking a lovely photo of me Tiffany
Finally the sun came out and stayed for a while.
If I’m reading this correctly, I believe this church owns at least four buildings and connected them by overhead bridges.
Surfs up and I’m out of here!!!
AyoOutLoud 
Amazing photos :). There’s some really cool places around Jacksonville too, there’s a place called Ginnie springs. It’s AMAZING. I went scuba diving there years ago. I don’t much remember the architecture of Jacksonville all that well though.
sounds nice! hmmmnnn will have to get you back there then 😀
Awesome tour… Beautiful images… love them.. 🙂
Cheers… !!
Thank you mucho! 😀
I adored viewing your line of photos. The pic with the lamp post is fab-tabulous! Y’all rocked! Thank you for sharing.
🙂 Thank you! That was my favourite .. actually stopped and took the time to compose that one then had to ran to catch up with my classmates who were far gone ahead 🙂
Thanks for the tour!
🙂 Yer most welcome! Happy you enjoyed
Beautiful photos… 🙂
You wrote that it was cold and windy
but the Tiffany-shot have both smile and sunshine in the background… 🙂 😉
I am glad you noticed that. It was a strange thing that day … that photo was taken in the afternoon – by then the sun came out and it warmed up enough. It was still chilly but I told my classmates that I was going to brave it and go ‘jacketless’ for that photo 🙂
It’s just what i said – I have a love – hate relationship! But then it’s Winter!!!! lol Could be FAR WORSE!!!!
Thanks for the tour. The building with the key and the raven – the library?
Welcome!
Yes it is!!!! We stood there for a while staring at it lol . just added to the ‘charm’ of downtown!
Beautiful pics and what interesting work you have! I just realized today that I had to change a setting in WP to get instant update emails from your site. Sorry I haven’t been around recently. I have catch up to do 😀
Ooo yes that got me once! Thank you!
Hope you enjoy catching up .. I’ve been doing the same on your blog. As always I love your writing 🙂 Best wishes
I know! But I had this expectation of sun and from what I heard – it NEVER gets cold so I was completely thrown off. I realize I am being a bit harsh though 🙂
We are to be designing a museum of our choosing – Currently Jacksonville has many museums – Art & Gardens, Contemporary Art, Science & Natural History, African-American History, Manuscript Library, Maritime, Fire and Southern History. Mine will be a museum of fashion and film.. I’ll be posting other stuff later about it … site and my ideas. Think it’d be fun to take everyone through a typical studio project. Our site is huge so it will involve quite a bit of landscaping and relating the program to the overall context!
Fashion and film – interesting combination! It sounds like a lot of fun. You clever girl!
Fab photos as always dear! But it’s winter, so you can expect a bit of cold, right! With your keen eye for design, I agree with you that Jacksonville’s city center looks a bit of a mess. Are you going to design/landscape a building there? Tell me more!