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Miami Time Machine
| Article
# : |
19289 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1991 |
1,270 Words |
| Author
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Skip Kaltenheuser
Skip Kaltenheuser writes on art and architecture from
Washington, D.C. |
It is one of those peculiar places that doesn't seem like it belongs in America, yet on reflection could probably exist nowhere else. The Art Deco Historic District in Miami can trace European antecedents back to the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris, but refraction through the American prism projects images that outline a national psyche. It carries the flavor of a film noir that some prankster splashed with color, or the stage sets for a revival of Cole Porter's Anything Goes. It's the land of Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis on the run with Marilyn Monroe's all-girl band.
Echoes of the area resonate at the Clay Hotel on Washington Avenue. It includes an international hostel to which a steady stream of backpackers from around the world migrate like ants to a sugarloaf. During the Roaring Twenties the hotel was the hangout for Al Capone's legendary gambling syndicate. Band leader Desi Arnez started the rhumba craze on its side street, Espanola Way, a former red-light district and Bohemian enclave. The hotel has often served as a back drop for Miami Vice episodes, rock videos, and feature films.
The Art Deco District secured designation in 1979 as the nation's first and largest Twentieth Century National Register Historic District. The square-mile area, roughly bounded by the ocean, Lenox Court, Sixth Street, and Dade Boulevard, embraces eight hundred historic buildings constructed between 1923 and 1942. Architectural styles float into each other: Art Deco, Mediterranean Revival, Mission, Zig Zag Moderne, Streamline, Depression Moderne, with eccentric touches of almost any other style one might imagine.
Art Deco itself defies precise definition, as it was based on a movement away from classical forms of architecture, and overlaps many design styles. Generally, it refers to an attempt in the late 1920s and 1930s to redefine history and the environment in geometric terms around a futuristic perspective. The Cubists calmed down the flowery excesses and asymmetrical forms of Art Nouveau and presented more simplified shapes instead of excessive detail.
Palm Tree Motif
There are also North and South American Indian influences that include Aztec, Pueblo and pre-Colombian, Amazon, Peruvian, and Brazilian, a sort of stylistic tribal melting pot, as well as African. The opening of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922-23 laid the groundwork for a strong Egyptian influence. The palm tree motif associated
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