Building Art

So you thought South Beach was just a hotbed of nightclubs, sidewalk cafés, and beautiful models strutting their stuff? Hard to believe, but it's about much more. It's about Art Deco, the streamlined style that proliferated in design from the 1920s through the 1940s and is exemplified in so many...

By Sue Lynn

August 28, 2003

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So you thought South Beach was just a hotbed of nightclubs, sidewalk cafés, and beautiful models strutting their stuff? Hard to believe, but it's about much more. It's about Art Deco, the streamlined style that proliferated in design from the 1920s through the 1940s and is exemplified in so many of the area's buildings. It's also about history and the quest to keep it alive. To wit: Miami Beach boasts the only district on the National Register of Historic Places that is composed entirely of twentieth-century buildings.

Miami Design Preservation League founders Barbara Capitman and Leonard Horowitz may be long gone, but many of the Art Deco-style buildings that they fought so hard to safeguard live on. Embarking on an MDPL Art Deco District Guided Tour is one way to see the structures and learn their stories.

Navin Ramani, a volunteer who guided a recent Thursday-evening tour, offered some tidbits about Miami Beach: Once it was a deserted barrier island clogged with thick mangrove swamps extending west from what is now Washington Avenue. Add mosquitoes and alligators and it's a wonder that Henry Flagler had the guts to build a railroad and lavish resorts for his pals and others to lure them to the Beach.

But the well-heeled still swarm here. One place that attracts them is the Tides Hotel. Ramani explained why porthole windows are used in the striking building and in neighboring structures as an architectural statement. He also revealed that in Art Deco, "eyebrows" refer to more than what sit above one's eyes -- they're ledges that rest above windows and offer shade from the blazing South Florida sun.

South Beach is enough to dazzle anyone's eyes. It's probably the only place to boast a one-square-mile area that blends buildings in classical, modern, and tropical styles. And the Art Deco structures' charm and character continues to bring worldwide attention to Miami Beach.

Sue Lynn

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