The largest collection of Art Deco architecture in the world — over 800 buildings in pastel rows along Ocean Drive, Collins Avenue, and Washington Avenue — exists because one woman refused to let them be demolished. Barbara Capitman and a small group of preservationists fought through the 1970s and 1980s to save buildings that developers considered worthless and architects dismissed as kitsch. The result is a neighbourhood where the architecture itself is the museum: Streamline Moderne curves, porthole windows, ziggurat rooflines, bas-relief flamingos, and the particular tropical Deco vocabulary that makes Miami Beach's version distinct from any other city's.
Location
South Beach, Miami
Map
Insider Intel
Take the Miami Design Preservation League walking tour for the architectural education — the docents explain the Streamline Moderne details you would otherwise miss. Walk Ocean Drive from 5th to 15th Street studying the facades. The Cardozo Hotel, the Carlyle, the Colony, and the Breakwater are the icons. Then walk Collins Avenue one block west for the less-photographed but equally beautiful buildings. The Art Deco Welcome Center on Ocean Drive has maps and resources.
Early morning from 7am to 9am when the light is low and warm on the pastel facades, the sidewalks are empty, and the architecture exists without the noise of the restaurants and bars that colonize the ground floors. Late afternoon for the golden hour effect on the west-facing buildings along Collins. Avoid midday when the light is harsh and the crowds peak.
The district spans roughly from 5th Street to 23rd Street between Ocean Drive and Lenox Avenue. Free to walk at any hour. The Miami Design Preservation League (MDPL) offers guided walking tours daily at 10:30am from the Art Deco Welcome Center at 1001 Ocean Drive — the ninety-minute tour is the best investment of time and money in South Beach. The buildings are commercial and residential; most interiors are not publicly accessible but the facades are the primary attraction. The neon signs illuminate at dusk and create a second, equally compelling architectural experience after dark.