Society of Architectural Historians. Created and wrote the Florida entries with Dr. David Rifkind.
SAH Archipedia is an authoritative online encyclopedia of the U.S. built environment organized by the Society of Architectural Historians and the University of Virginia Press. It contains histories, photographs, and maps for over 20,000 structures and places.
Water defines the Florida peninsula and has an impact on nearly every aspect of its architectural legacy. The special form of carbonate limestone that undergirds nearly everything built on the peninsula was created starting around 65 million years ago by marine organisms whose remnants fossilized into the porous bedrock. About 12,000 years ago the shoreline reached its current configuration, making it today the longest shoreline of any state in the continental United States. The word peninsula, which is created by joining the Latin words paena (almost) and insula (island), points to a palpable sense of expectation—almost being something or somewhere else— that underlies Florida’s architecture and makes its collection of architecture and urban experiments one of the most interesting in the country.