Party by Design

We could all use a little more cash, and the best way to get people to open their wallets for you is to throw a really chic party and get them drunk. That may not have been the exact thought process behind A Very Wolfsonian Weekend of fundraising events to support the museum's public programs and fine exhibits, but it will do the trick.

The party gets started on Friday, January 21, with the gala "Miami Modernism" cocktail party preview and silent auction, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the James L. Knight Center (400 SE Second Ave.), featuring major design and fine art movements from 1900 to 1970. The silent auction will include chairs from Arango, Abitare, Crimson Gate, and Kartell, and for you who want to get out of your seat and speed down the highway, you can bid on a motorcycle from Ducati. Tickets cost $75 to $100.

The museum presents an International Design Symposium with French industrial designer Malati Crasset, hot Brazilian designers Fernando and Humberto Campana, and New York architect Mark Naden, to name a few, on Saturday, January 22, at the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse (591 NW 27th St., Miami). The discussion starts at 2:00 p.m. and admission is free.

Saturday night is usually reserved for a black-tie gala, but this year the Wolfsonian presents "An Extravaganza in Seven Spaces," which is a series of dining events taking place around town. From AQUA Allison Island to the warehouse home of Mera and Don Rubell, you can expect glamorous settings for dining and dancing. The dinners start at 7:00, and tickets cost $350 per person (you choose which dinner event to attend).

After dinner, you can drink Bacardi and party like it's your birthday at the Cuba Fiesta Tropical after party honoring the rum's contribution to architecture at its blue and white ceramic-tiled Miami headquarters (2100 Biscayne Blvd.). The rum will be flowing and the rumba bumping from 9:00 to 1:00. Tickets cost $60 if purchased by January 20, or $75 at the door.