Miami’s colorful Art Deco Historic District
In 1896, when Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast (FEC) railroad reached Biscayne Bay, Miami was named Fort Dallas. It was an unincorporated border settlement established in 1836 as a Seminole Indian war fortress. Within a year it was incorporated and crowned a Flagler hotel with electric lights, elevators and a swimming pool.
Just 125 years later, Miami is now the third richest city in the world. When it was incorporated, its population was about 300; Today there are over 300 skyscrapers in the city, making Miami the third largest skyline (third largest after NYC and Chicago) in the United States.
More:Castillo de San Marcos is perhaps the best part of St. Augustine for history buffs
History buffs might be interested to know that Miami also has the greatest concentration of Art Deco architecture of any city in the nation, most of it neatly in the Art Deco Historic District of Miami.
Four of Miami’s 10 historic districts include the Art Deco Historic District (ADHD); the district has 800 designated historic buildings, none of which are in the Art Deco style. Some are Mediterranean Revival, and some are MiMo – Miami Modern. Each represents a particular era in Miami’s architectural history, and each dominates a different part of ADHD.
MEDITERRANEAN REVIVAL
The earliest of these is Mediterranean Revival, so named because it is a revival of the ancient architectural styles of the Mediterranean countries i.e. Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey and North Africa. The defining features of Mediterranean Revival are stucco walls that can be painted white, salmon pink or pumpkin orange, barrel roofs, wrought iron fixtures as well as arched windows and doors. This style was all the rage in Florida and California in the 1920s, and Miami, although only 30 years old at the time, was born fashionable.
More:Florida History: Jacksonville’s Role in the Silent Film Industry
The Mediterranean Revival-style architecture is dotted around Miami, but the best place to experience its ambiance is along the bougainvillea-draped Española Way between 14th and 15th Streets in the ADHD South Beach area.
Española Way, Miami’s first commercial development, was built as an artist colony in the 1920s. Today it is a promenade with restaurants, bars and shops; This is where you want to relax after a day of ADHD. Authentic Spanish, Cuban and Mexican food, aromatic, hand-rolled cigars and salsa dancing can keep you up late, so stay in one of the beautiful, restored, historic hotels here for the duration of your South Beach.
ART DECO
In the 1930s, the Great Depression sobered most of the world. Even the Art Deco design became a little less romantic and entered its second, somewhat more industrial phase, called Streamline Moderne, Miami, but apparently incapable of strict sobriety, built the playful elegance of the French word into the Streamline Moderne style that defined it. In other words, the buildings of this era may have lacked something of the original Arts Décoratifs style with its modern European, but also ancient Egyptian and even Mayan motifs, but in Miami it was still delightfully presented in the pastel colors of French confectionery. At night, these colors give the infamous South Beach neighborhood, where the streamline modernity of Art Deco predominates, a delightfully lewd vibe bathed in the glow of Art Deco neon.
Despite
MiMo, or Miami Modernism, was all the rage in the 1950s and 60s. The Miami Design Preservation League (https://mdpl.org/) describes MiMo as asymmetrical features with “crazy angles, cheese hole cutouts, kidney and amoeba shapes, futuristic jet and space age shapes, mosaic murals”. [and] Anodized aluminum in gold and copper. “Sounds just right for the psychotic, rock’n’roll, doo-wapping, bongo-tumping, hula-hoop, ticklish-sticky craziness of the era.
More:Travel back in time through history at the Timucuan Preserve in Jacksonville
The largest concentration of MiMo-style architecture, according to the MiMo Biscayne Association, is: “the wonderland of humble motels along Biscayne Boulevard between NE 50th and NE 77th Streets,” Miami’s hippest historic destination “; North Beachs “large and fine ensemble of modern neighborhoods and mid-century landmarks; “The Morris Lapidus / Mid-20th Century Architectural Historic District, which includes world-renowned icons such as the Fontainebleau and Eden Roc hotels by Lapidus …” and finally “on the East Island of the Bay Harbor Islands … it is believed to be one of the greatest concentrations of mid-century architecture in the nation. “
Our history is manifested in our architecture, and nowhere is the history of the first half of the 20th century so visually present as in the preserved historic districts of the young city of Miami.
Before you go, please plan your trip by visiting the Art Deco Museum and https://www.miamiandbeaches.com/things-to-do/history-and-heritage/art-deco-historic-district.
Cynthia A. Williams (cwilliams1020@gmail.com)
[ad_1]