architecture
How I Learned to Love the Koger Center
by Rex R. Thomas
Design afi cionados embrace mid-century modern like a new puppy,
with midmod clubs and tours in cities all over the nation. Orlando-
ans have obediently enthused over our own postwar residential relics,
lovingly wiping off the accumulation of terra cotta barrel tiles and
fi berglass Corinthian columns like mud from the new puppy’s rump.
When it comes to our commercial structures, however, our passions
cool. Somehow, when these bigger dogs grow older, they are not as
cute. Why this is, and why nobody loves the old Koger Center offi ce
park behind the Colonial Target, is a window into Orlando’s psyche.
These buildings, midcentury modern to the core, receive more than
their share of designer-hurled vitriol because they’re a little uncom-
fortably too Orla ndo. Instead of turning our noses up at them, we
should embrace them and their part of our local zeitgeist.
The two- and three-story buildings along Executive Center Drive,
Lawton Road, and Woodcock Road look like textbook vintage early
1960s modernism. They’re ideally situated a few minutes’ drive from
downtown, an early exurbian offi ce park prototype. The dreadful cu-
bicle factories that blight UCF, Lake Mary, and Maitland each seem
to be a copy of this earlier, modestly scaled, in-town model. These are
clean, with spare detailing and a thoughtful mix of glass, brick, and
steel. And yet they languish forever in a “B” class offi ce space mode.
The local chapter of the American Institute of Architects once had
its offi ce in the fi rst building off Maguire, on Woodcock Road. As a
somewhat male-dominated society, at least the address might gener-
ate sophomoric giggles, but alas, the architects detested this location
and the building. It is a two-story affair, with an elegant metal spiral
stair rising up through the lobby. One imagines Mad Men’s Megan
Draper skittering down the stair to greet Don Draper. The tall, slender
columns holding up its sunshade was a Floridian nod to Philip John-
son’s style of “ballet modernism.”
But the architects had a deep and abiding detestation of this building
and the “disurbanity” of it all, so they fl ew the coop. The Koger Cen-
ter’s midcenturyism just wasn’t good enough. Many of the buildings
are diluted knockoffs of the greats like Johnson, Mies van der Rohe,
and others. The offi ce buildings are helpfully surrounded by parking
lots, which just smacks of the suburbanism we are all taught to hate.
Ultimately, the whole scene was rejected because it wasn’t down-
town.
lava rock anchoring its ends. Several use I-beams as decoration, like
Mies did on the Seagram building. Corners are nicely resolved. Min-
imalist canopies heroically grace the entries. There’s a whole lotta
midmod going on here.
But what is really going on with the Koger Center is that it is deriva-
tive, not original. The mid-century modernism isn’t terrifi cally unique,
but it stands on its own. As offi ce parks go, it is spread out, so the
design of each building loses its impact in the sea of parking that sur-
rounds it. There’s no “fi re” between the buildings to excite a viewer.
By the time you park and walk to the front door, you just want to get
in, for god’s sake, and not admire the clever connections of materials.
These criticisms seem to echo criticisms of Orlando in general. We’re
unique, and of course we are special, but we really aren’t all that
remarkable yet. We haven’t quite found our design voice yet as a
city, at least not like Miami, Austin, or Portland, or other cities of this
size. This lack of self-confi dence shows in our homegrown efforts like
“Orlando doesn’t suck” t-shirts and the cheesy glass and stucco boxes
that pass for modernism around town.
We’re also spread out. This is a fact of Orlando that is most diffi cult
to overcome. Between UCF and the west side, there are a whole lotta
stoplights to stop at. Geographically, we’re not nearly as large as L.A.,
but our density is so low that the effort to get from place to place is
sometimes just too much. As a result, there is no energy, no fi re be-
tween the districts, no boundaries or turf wars. No unique design to
the city’s parts that give spice and color to the neighborhoods.
The Koger Center still has some very nice architecture to it, work that
has stood the test of time. The current landlord would do well to relax
it a little bit, let a few new buildings pop up in between, and accent its
midcentury modern vibe more; really go for it.
Orlando should consider the same thing as well. The city should relax
things a little bit, and not always feel compelled to script out the game
quite so closely for actors in the city—developers, neighborhood asso-
ciations, artists, and so on. If we could all get together and say “back
off—we got this,” there would be a voice to Orlando that might just
arise and create a new future. The puppy, so cute, may just become a
show dog someday.
photo by Matt Duke
Once architects dis a place, word gets around and soon it becomes
de rigeur. “They ought to tear it down and build a mixed-use,” mut-
ter developers, as if we don’t have enough empty street-level shops,
parking garages, and ill-designed apartments in Orlando. To wish a
pox such as this upon the unloved offi ce park seems needlessly harsh.
What is it about the old Koger Center that causes such loathing?
I’ve hunted around it for clues. From a windshield, the buildings
present a certain thoughtfulness of design at the medium scale. 988
Woodcock has a row of cheeky looking hourglass columns behind
which beige brick lurks, suggesting Oscar Niemeyer, godfather of trop-
ical modernism. One building is reminiscent of Hawaii, with black
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