Miami Beach Architectural District

The Miami Beach Architectural District (also known as Old Miami Beach Historic District and the more popular term Miami Art Deco District) is a U.S. historic district (designated as such on May 14, 1979) located in the South Beach neighborhood of Miami Beach, Florida. The area is well known as the district where Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace lived and was assassinated by Andrew Cunanan, in a mansion on Ocean Drive. It is bounded[2] by the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Sixth Street to the south, Alton Road to the west and the Collins Canal and Dade Boulevard to the north. It contains 960 historic buildings.

Miami Beach Architectural District
Miami Beach Architectural District is located in Central Miami
Miami Beach Architectural District
Miami Beach Architectural District is located in Florida
Miami Beach Architectural District
LocationMiami Beach, Florida
Coordinates25°47′9″N 80°8′3″W
Area5,750 acres (23.3 km2)
NRHP reference No.79000667[1]
Added to NRHPMay 14, 1979

Historical significance

This historic district holds the largest collection of Art Deco buildings in the world, an umbrella term covering a range of styles such as “Streamline”, “Tropical”, and “Med-deco” and built mostly between the Great Depression and the early 1940s. Notably, the architectural movement reached Miami after the city’s real estate market took a downturn in 1925, and the "Great Miami Hurricane" of 1926 that left 25,000 people homeless throughout the greater Miami region.

The designs are often described as evoking technological modernity, resilience, and optimism.[3] The Miami Beach Art Deco Museum describes the Miami building boom as coming mostly during the second phase of the architectural movement known as Streamline Moderne, a style that was “buttressed by the belief that times would get better, and was infused with the optimistic futurism extolled at American’s World Fairs of the 1930s.”[4]

In 1989, it was listed in A Guide to Florida's Historic Architecture, published by the University of Florida Press.[5]

The district includes areas of seasonal hotels, commercial strips, and residential area.[6]

Hotels on Ocean Drive, which can actually face the ocean, run from 5th to 15th Streets and front onto Lummus Park, a public park and beach. Many of these "reflect the influences of the Moderne Style perpetuated at the International expositions of the 1930s": the Chicago World's Fair of 1933 and the New York World's Fair of 1939.

These include:

  • Amsterdam Palace (1930), 1114-16 Ocean Drive, "one of the best examples of the Mediterranean Revival style to be seen in Miami Beach" Built around a central court-yard, it was designed as a replica or derivative of Christopher Columbus' home in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic.[6]
  • the Victor (1937), 1144 Ocean Drive, International
  • the Tides (1936), 1220 Ocean Drive, Decorated Moderne (See fig. 8 in NRHP document),
  • the Carlyle (1941), 1250 Ocean Drive, Moderne (See fig. 5),
  • the Cardoza (1939), 1300 Ocean Drive, Moderne,
  • the Netherlands (1935), 1330 Ocean Drive, Decorated Moderne, and
  • the Winterhaven (1939), 1400 Ocean Drive.[6]

The district also includes:

Notable architects
  • Park Central (Henry Hohauser, 1937)
    Park Central (Henry Hohauser, 1937)
  • Imperial (1939)
    Imperial (1939)
  • Majestic (Albert Anis, 1940)
    Majestic (Albert Anis, 1940)
  • Avalon (Albert Anis, 1941)
    Avalon (Albert Anis, 1941)
  • Beacon (Henry O. Nelson, 1936)
    Beacon (Henry O. Nelson, 1936)
  • Colony (Henry Hohauser, 1935)
    Colony (Henry Hohauser, 1935)
  • Waldorf Towers (Albert Anis, 1937)
    Waldorf Towers (Albert Anis, 1937)
  • Breakwater (Anton Skislewicz, 1939)
    Breakwater (Anton Skislewicz, 1939)
  • Edison (Henry Hohauser, 1935)
    Edison (Henry Hohauser, 1935)
  • Clevelander (Albert Anis, 1939)
    Clevelander (Albert Anis, 1939)
  • Adrian (1934)
    Adrian (1934)
  • Leslie (Albert Anis, 1937)
    Leslie (Albert Anis, 1937)
  • Carlyle (1941)
    Carlyle (1941)
  • Boulevard Hotel (August Swarz, 1950)
    Boulevard Hotel (August Swarz, 1950)
  • Cardozo (Henry Hohauser, 1939)
    Cardozo (Henry Hohauser, 1939)
  • Cavalier (1936)
    Cavalier (1936)
  • Netherlands Hotel (1935)
    Netherlands Hotel (1935)
  • McAlpin Hotel (L. Murray Dixon, 1940)
    McAlpin Hotel (L. Murray Dixon, 1940)
  • Marlin Hotel
    Marlin Hotel
  • Essex House (Henry Hohauser, 1938)
    Essex House (Henry Hohauser, 1938)

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. Miami Beach Architectural District, FL - Google Maps
  3. Kellard, Joseph (Summer 2020). "Miami's Art Deco Answer to the Great Depression". The Objective Standard. Glen Allen Press. 15 (2): 44–48.
  4. "What is Art Deco". mdpl.org. Miami Design Preservation League. Retrieved August 29, 2020.
  5. A Guide to Florida's Historic Architecture, 1989, Gainesville: University of Florida Press, p. 145, ISBN 0-8130-0941-3
  6. National Register of Historic Place Inventory-Nomination: Miami Beach Architectural District / Old Miami Beach Historic District. NARA. 1979. 1042 searchable pages of materials from 1979 to 2012. Downloading may be slow. Includes a series of 37 black and white photos, a series of 57 b&w photos from 1978, correspondence, maps, newspaper clippings, additional documentation and a 2012 amendment with 15 color photos from 2010-12.

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