Tropical Deco: The Architecture and Design of Old Miami Beach

by Laura Cerwinske

Born out of fantasy and speculation, designed for fun and profit, Miami Beach has been, from its inception, a city of mythical composition. Its famed Art Deco District was designated a Historic District by the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, and today the area is basking in a revival of interest and attention. Nevertheless, while fashion photographers and entrepreneurs, artists, developers, restaurateurs and club owners flock to the neighborhood, it is still struggling, after years of deterioration and neglect, to recreate itself out of its own forgotten glamour. Despite a new palette of confectionery colors and the renovation of numerous buildings, the Art Deco District remains in need of urban cultivation, of a reinterpretation that transcends its original resort identity. Author Laura Cerwinske introduces Tropical The Architecture and Design of Old Miami Beach by discussing both the area's past and its future. Throughout her comprehensive exploration of the most concentrated neighborhood of Art Deco buildings in the world, she details the style's evolution and examines its design.

Tropical The Architecture and Design of Old Miami Beach treats its readers to a delightful view of a unique adaption of a historic architectural style. For, while Miami Beach's Art Deco architecture derives its stylistic roots from the streamlined and electric visions of the cosmopolitan North, Tropical Deco design is much softer and more temperately seductive. These are buildings whose narrative and evocative nature is at once sophisticated, naive and filled with humor.

Genres: Architecture

96 pages, Paperback

First published February 15, 1991

Reviews

[Greg Bem · Rating 5 out of 5]

After recently visiting Miami Beach and discovering Tropical Deco via a walking tour, I was interested in diving in deeper. This book allows for such an opportunity. While it was published in the early 1980s and doesn't necessarily capture the current state of the things, it does manage to breakdown the architecture into many approachable facets. The inclusion of many visual examples makes for easy learning.