ART DECO WEEKEND MIAMI BEACH
Prepare to be Seduced
By Steve Wright
They are sirens that call out to you with beauty, exuberance and spectacular figures.
They are at once both chic and classic.
They are bold, colorful temptresses strutting their stuff along the edge of Miami Beach’s sultry sands.
At night, they light up with a come hither look that brings Ocean Drive traffic to a halt.
They are painted enchantresses dolled up with fashionable friezes, nautical themes, tropical flourishes, jazz age ziggurats and streamline moderne features.
Tens of thousands will come to Miami Beach in January to celebrate these sexy hotels and neighboring buildings that bless South Beach with the most densely-packed collection of art deco gems in the world.
Art Deco Weekend is a three-day celebration of the 20th century architectural style that started in France, exploded in depression era America and became a truly international style.
According to the hosting Miami Design Preservation League (MDPL), art deco is characterized by “symmetry, ziggurat (stepped) rooflines, glass block, decorative sculptural panels, eyebrows, round porthole windows, terrazzo floors, curved edges and corners, elements in groups of three, neon lighting (used in both exteriors as well as interior spaces).”
Art deco’s name comes from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes held in Paris in 1925, featuring, in the words of the MDPL, “expensive materials, angular yet voluptuous with elaborate motifs of fountains, nudes and flora.”
Miami’s Beach’s style of art deco, with its ocean liner motifs and tropical-themed reliefs, was inspired by machinery and emerging American industrial design. The depression-era architecture -- like the futuristic design of pavilions at several of America’s world fairs of the 1930s -- expressed a belief that, through machinery and streamlining, things would get better.
Wright first visited Art Deco Weekend as an Ohioan in the late 1990s and vowed to stay. Within three years, he was living in an historic Spanish Mission style home in Little Havana and making weekly sojourns across Biscayne Bay to photograph Miami Beach’s art deco.
TOMORROW: ART DECO WEEKEND 2011
Art Deco Weekend will take place January 14-16 2011 in Miami Beach.
For details, visit the Miami Design Preservation League website at http://www.mdpl.org
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