Frank Lloyd Wright’s Only Planetarium Has Reopened After Being Closed for Years

The only planetarium ever built from a Frank Lloyd Wright design has reopened to the public after more than two decades without regular programming.

Located at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, roughly halfway between Tampa and Orlando, the Miller Planetarium reopened on September 26, 2026, following a multiyear restoration. The project preserved Wright’s original design while introducing modern projection and sound systems, allowing visitors to once again attend astronomy shows beneath the architect’s distinctive dome and design features.

The planetarium is one of 13 Wright-designed structures on the college’s campus, which contains the largest single-site collection of his architecture in the world. Since reopening, there’s already been considerable interest, according to Tory King, Florida Southern College’s director of tourism operations and visitor experience, who notes that the planetarium’s four weekly shows were fully booked solid for the first month, with advance reservations extending into December.

Here’s what travelers need to know before making a trip.

The history behind Frank Lloyd Wright’s only planetarium

Courtesy of Florida Southern College

Wright designed more than 1,000 architectural works over his career, but planetariums were something of a rarity. He created drawings for one in 1925 as part of a building that was never constructed and envisioned another for a downtown Pittsburgh development in the late 1940s, although that project never progressed to the drawing stage.

The planetarium at FSC “was the only planetarium designed by Wright that was ever constructed,” says Dale Gyure, an architectural historian who has studied Wright’s work at the college. Wright also designed an orrery, a mechanical model of the solar system, for the floor below the planetarium, which Gyure believes may be the only one the architect ever designed.

Wright began designing Florida Southern College’s campus in 1938, and over the next two decades, his plans grew into a collection of buildings connected by covered walkways. His signature geometric patterns and decorative concrete blocks appear throughout campus, which he designed to work with the surrounding landscape.

The collection, which Wright called Child of the Sun, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2012. It includes the Annie Pfeiffer Chapel, known for its soaring bell tower and unusual angular design, and the Water Dome, a circular fountain designed to create a dome-shaped canopy of water.

Courtesy of Florida Southern College

The planetarium came toward the end of Wright’s work at FSC. It’s housed within the Polk County Science Building, the largest structure he designed for the campus, which was constructed between 1954 and 1958.

According to Gyure, the building’s design coincided with a shift in the college’s educational priorities. FSC was expanding its science curriculum and placing greater emphasis on research and scientific inquiry. But the planetarium wasn’t just for students. “A planetarium is as much a public, outward-facing building, as much oriented to the community as the institution,” Gyure says.

The planetarium hosted its first public show on April 7, 1960, and continued welcoming school groups, students, and visitors for decades. But in 2004, its aging projection equipment stopped working, bringing regular programming to an end. The space remained largely unused for the next 22 years.

However, bringing it back required considerably more work than installing a new projector. The restoration included repairing the building’s exterior, installing a new roof, and replacing more than 280 custom-made decorative tiles. Inside, crews repaired walls and removed later additions that had changed Wright’s original layout.

Rather than arranging chairs in rows facing a screen, Wright designed two concentric circles of curved benches surrounding a central projector. The restoration returned the auditorium to that arrangement, giving visitors an experience much closer to what the architect originally envisioned.

The planetarium also received a new digital projection system and Bowen sound system, allowing it to present modern astronomy programs without sacrificing the historic interior.

For Gyure, the reopening offers visitors a chance to see a lesser-known side of Wright’s work. It also returns a long-unused part of the campus to its original purpose, something he considers particularly important for a building designed to welcome the public.

King agrees, saying, “The planetarium adds another dimension to the visitor experience by bringing science, astronomy, and education into the mix. It gives visitors another reason to spend time on campus and discover something beyond the architecture.”

How to visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s planetarium

Courtesy of Florida Southern College

The Miller Planetarium currently offers public shows on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 3:30 p.m., with six programs rotating throughout the month.

Among them are Destination Mars: The New Frontier, which examines the possibilities of human exploration of Mars, and Undiscovered Worlds: The Search Beyond Our Sun, which introduces audiences to planets orbiting stars beyond our solar system. Other presentations cover the history of astronomy, the solar system, and the search for other worlds.

Shows last approximately 20 to 32 minutes, but visitors should allow 60 to 90 minutes for the full experience, which includes an introduction to Wright’s design and the history of the building.

Tickets cost $20 per person, or $15 per person for families and groups of four or more, and are available through the college’s online reservation system. Given the demand since reopening, booking well ahead is advisable.

All visits begin at the Sharp Family Tourism and Education Center at 840 Johnson Avenue in Lakeland. From there, guides escort guests across campus to the planetarium, pointing out Wright’s architecture along the way. The visitor center also has a gift shop specializing in Wright-related merchandise.

For travelers interested in architecture, it’s worth allowing additional time to explore the campus. Florida Southern College offers guided tours of Wright’s buildings, though tours require separate reservations and tickets.

Gyure says what makes FSC worth visiting isn’t just the number of Wright buildings, but how they fit together. Unlike a collection of individual homes, the campus was designed as a whole, with each building contributing to Wright’s larger vision.

“It’s worth the effort, because it’s the largest collection of Wright’s work in one place, spanning two decades of ideas,” he says.