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Meet Jacksonville's greatest living architect

A new book celebrates the career and influence of Jacksonville architect Ted Pappas.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jacksonville is a city that has seen incredible changes over the past 60 years, and one of the men at the center of many of those changes is architect Ted Pappas.

Author Tim Gilmore recently wrote a book about Pappas and will present it at the Jacksonville Historical Society's Fall Speaker Series on Thursday September 1st. Prior to the event, Gilmore gave First Coast News a sneak peek of the book and detailed some of Pappas's work.

"Without a doubt, Ted Pappas is the living architect who has had more influence on Jacksonville than anybody else," said Gilmore.

Tim Gilmore is an author and English Professor at FSCJ who explores the architecture of Ted Pappas in his latest book: Box Broken Open, which he wrote while exploring the buildings that Pappas designed with Ted Pappas himself.

"Touring the city with Ted Pappas was a pretty incredible thing," recalled Gilmore, "to hear his thinking, he sees architecture much differently than most of us do."

Pappas designed or restored more than 40 buildings throughout Jacksonville.

"One of the things I loved about his career is that it's always looking in both directions, it always has, even his contemporary architecture has deep historic thinking," said Gilmore.

Gilmore's book about Pappas and his buildings is like flipping through the growth and development of the city.

"He's restored so many structures across the center of the city," said Gilmore, "if you can imagine the city without those structures there would be these huge gaping holes."

One of those buildings is the Singleton Senior Center in Springfield.

"It's got this heavy concrete thing going on, but it's very fluid at the same time," said Gilmore, "the concrete bears the marking of the wood it was cast on."

Pappas's first solo commission was the St. John the Divine Greek Orthodox Church when it was originally constructed on Atlantic Boulevard.

"This is a structure that's very contemporary, but it also has these classical details," said Gilmore, "he's working with columns like a Greek temple but they don't look anything like that, it's very contemporary."

On September 1st anyone who is interested in the history and architecture of Jacksonville can meet Gilmore for a discussion about his book inside of Old St. Andrew's Church... and yes, Ted Pappas restored that building as well. 

The Jacksonville Historical Society's Fall Speaker Series begins Thursday September 1st 1t 6pm in Old St. Andrew's Church at 317 A. Philip Randolph Blvd. Jacksonville Historical Society members are free; RSVP to communications@jaxhistory.org
Non-members, click here to donate for a ticket; suggested donation $10.

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