Miami holds the world's largest concentration of Art Deco architecture. The Tequesta people lived at the mouth of the Miami River on Biscayne Bay for thousands of years before European contact. The Spanish came in 1513, the British in 1763, and the territory passed to the United States in 1821, with Florida becoming the 27th state on March 3, 1845. The modern city began with a Cleveland widow named Julia DeForest Tuttle, who in 1891 sold her late husband's iron foundry and bought 640 acres on the north bank of the Miami River, at the old Fort Dallas military site, and began a relentless campaign to convince the Standard Oil baron and Florida East Coast Railway builder Henry M. Flagler to extend his railroad south to the wilderness she could see from her porch. When the Great Freeze of 1894-1895 wiped out the citrus belt of central and northern Florida, Tuttle sent Flagler an orange blossom dispatched by courier as proof her south Florida coast had been spared. The order to extend the tracks came. On April 22, 1896, the first Florida East Coast Railway train rolled into the Miami River, and on July 28, 1896, 502 male residents met in a downtown pool hall and voted to incorporate the City of Miami; Julia Tuttle is the only woman ever to have founded a major American city, and Flagler's Royal Palm Hotel opened its doors at the river's mouth in January 1897. The 1920s land boom built three of the city's defining works of architecture, all in the space of about three years: James Deering's Vizcaya estate on Biscayne Bay in Coconut Grove (built 1914-1922 in the Italian Renaissance and Mediterranean Revival style by architect F. Burrall Hoffman with artistic director Paul Chalfin and the Colombian landscape architect Diego Suarez, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1994); the Freedom Tower on Biscayne Boulevard (opened July 26, 1925, designed by Schultze and Weaver as the Miami News Tower and modeled on the Giralda bell tower of the Cathedral of Seville, later the Cuban Refugee Center from 1962 to 1974 — the "Ellis Island of the South" — and designated a National Historic Landmark on October 6, 2008); and George Merrick's Coral Gables, the Mediterranean Revival planned city of 1925, with its 1924 Venetian Pool and its 1926 Schultze and Weaver Biltmore Hotel. Across the bay on the Miami Beach barrier island, between 1923 and 1943, eight hundred buildings went up in the Tropical Deco style that adapted Art Deco to a subtropical climate — pastel facades, eyebrow ledges, porthole windows, neon signage, nautical motifs — and the entire one-square-mile district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 14, 1979, as the nation's first 20th-century urban historic district. Henry Hohauser's Colony Hotel of 1935 sits on Ocean Drive at the center of it. The Great Miami Hurricane of September 18, 1926, ended the land boom, and the city rebuilt through the 1930s under the same Tropical Deco vocabulary that defines South Beach today. On Biscayne Bay since the Tequesta.
Miami's third building burst came after Castro. The 1959 Cuban Revolution sent hundreds of thousands of Cuban exiles north to South Florida, and the federal government opened the Cuban Refugee Center inside the Freedom Tower from 1962 to 1974 — the "Ellis Island of the South" — where Cubans arriving with nothing received medical care, paperwork, and resettlement support. Calle Ocho, the Southwest 8th Street corridor through Little Havana, became and remains the cultural main street of Cuban-American Miami: the cigar rollers, the café cubano windows, the painted Mediterranean Revival façade of the 1926 Tower Theater at 1508 SW 8th Street, the domino tables of Máximo Gómez Park at the corner of 15th Avenue. The Versace mansion — Casa Casuarina at 1116 Ocean Drive, built in 1930 by Alden Freeman as a Mediterranean Revival reimagining of the Alcázar de Colón in Santo Domingo — is one of the architectural anchors of the Ocean Drive Art Deco frame, even though the building itself predates the high Deco of the 1930s rebuild. On Collins Avenue, Morris Lapidus's Fontainebleau opened December 20, 1954, and gave Miami Beach a third architectural vocabulary, the MiMo (Miami Modern) resort-hotel style that ran through the 1950s and 1960s.
Why People Visit Miami Florida
- Walk the Miami Beach Art Deco Historic District — the world's largest concentration of Art Deco architecture, with 800-plus buildings built between 1923 and 1943 in the Tropical Deco style on the South Beach barrier island. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 14, 1979, as the nation's first 20th-century urban historic district. Start at the Art Deco Welcome Center on Ocean Drive at 10th Street and walk north up Ocean Drive past the Colony Hotel (Henry Hohauser, 1935), then west along Espanola Way and Lincoln Road.
- Tour Vizcaya Museum & Gardens at 3251 South Miami Avenue in Coconut Grove — James Deering's Italian Renaissance and Mediterranean Revival winter villa built 1914-1922 by architect F. Burrall Hoffman with artistic director Paul Chalfin and Colombian landscape architect Diego Suarez. Thirty-four rooms in the main house, ten acres of formal gardens on Biscayne Bay, and the stone barge breakwater out in the water. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1994.
- Visit the Freedom Tower at 600 Biscayne Boulevard — the Schultze and Weaver Mediterranean Revival 17-story tower opened July 26, 1925, modeled on the Giralda bell tower of the Cathedral of Seville, that served from 1962 to 1974 as the Cuban Refugee Center, the "Ellis Island of the South." Listed on the National Register of Historic Places September 10, 1979, and designated a National Historic Landmark on October 6, 2008.
- Walk Coral Gables — George Merrick's 1925 Mediterranean Revival planned city. See the Venetian Pool (1924), the Biltmore Hotel (Schultze and Weaver, 1926), Miracle Mile, and Coral Way under the banyans.
- Stroll Calle Ocho through Little Havana — the historic Cuban-American main street, with the 1926 Mediterranean Revival Tower Theater at 1508 SW 8th Street, the rollers at El Titán de Bronce, the café cubano windows, and the domino tables of Máximo Gómez Park at 15th Avenue.
- Walk Ocean Drive past Casa Casuarina at 1116 Ocean Drive — built in 1930 by Alden Freeman as a Mediterranean Revival reimagining of the Alcázar de Colón in Santo Domingo, now part of the architectural frame of the Art Deco District. Continue north up Collins Avenue to the Fontainebleau (Morris Lapidus, 1954), the defining MiMo (Miami Modern) hotel.
- Visit the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) at Museum Park — the 2013 Herzog & de Meuron building on Biscayne Bay.
- Walk Wynwood Walls and the Wynwood arts district — outdoor murals and galleries north of Downtown.
- Drive across the Venetian Causeway (1925) for the island-hopping route from Downtown Miami to Miami Beach, or the Rickenbacker Causeway south to Key Biscayne, or the Julia Tuttle Causeway across mid-bay.
- Visit Bayfront Park downtown on Biscayne Bay — see the Julia Tuttle sculpture by Daub and Firmin honoring the city's founder.
- Drive south to Biscayne National Park and the start of the Florida Keys at Key Largo, or west to Everglades National Park.
- See the Miami Marine Stadium on Virginia Key — the 1963 Brutalist concrete grandstand by architect Hilario Candela, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
