MAISON&OBJET Americas
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/503691
m i a m i photography by martha cooper The precise interiors of the original Southeast Bank structure were designed by Florence Knoll Bassett, a Miami resident who studied with Mies and went on to an extraordinary career. Bassett's frst husband was Hans Knoll, of the pioneering furniture company that specialized in landmark pieces like Mies's Brno chairs and helped to popularize modernism. After he was killed in a car accident in Havana, Bassett took charge of the company. The original Southeast Bank building was pure Knoll, a sophisticated blend of classic Knoll furniture, such as Eero Saarinen marble tables, and personal touches like Bassett's custom-designed sofas. For sheer elegance and design intelligence, no Miami offce interior has ever matched it. Visually, Miami in the 1980s was defined by restored and historically protected Art Deco buildings that became part of countless South Beach fashion shoots and episodes of Miami Vice, as well as the early work of the frm Arquitectonica. On Brickell Avenue, just south of downtown Miami, is its most acclaimed structure, 1983's Atlantis, a condominium building with a "skycourt," a square hole on the 12th foor with a Jacuzzi and a lone palm tree. The Atlantis is pure tropical modernism and never stops being fun. The skycourt wound up on the cover of T.D. Allman's book Miami: City of the Future and in a scene in the 1983 Brian De Palma film Scarface. The 1990s were about protecting the past—the Biltmore was restored and even more of South Beach's Art Deco gems were renovated—and forging the design and architecture of the future. Craig Robins, one of South Beach's pioneers, began to buy property in the Design District. With stores like Poltrona Frau and Valentino, the district has become a mainstay of the international art fair Art Basel in Miami Beach as well as Design Miami/, a show that takes place during Art Basel. The Design District is also home to an array of architectural installations. In 2007, Marc Newson, a former Designer of the Year at Design Miami/, unveiled the DASH Fence, a 100-foot-long metal fence inspired by waves and the poetic possibilities of design, at the Design & Architecture Senior High. Wynwood, a formerly hardscrabble area south of the Design District, also benefted from a South Beach pio- neer, the late Tony Goldman. In 2009, Goldman launched Wynwood Walls, an outdoor museum featuring graffiti murals by such artists as Barry McGee and Kenny Scharf. In the past few years, graffti—curated and not—has helped transform the neighborhood, with new condo buildings breaking ground and sophisticated operations like the shop/café Made in Italy opening. Miami's starchitect era began in 2010 with Herzog & de Meuron's 1111 Lincoln Road, a public/ private project that salutes Morris Lapidus—the original designer of Miami Beach's Lincoln Road—while embrac- ing the conspicuous consumption of the area's first A Ron English mural at Wynwood Walls, an outdoor museum. In the past few years, graffiti—curated and not—has helped transform the Wynwood neighborhood. Wynwood, a formerly hardscrabble area south of the Design District, also benefted from a South Beach pioneer, the late Tony Goldman, who launched Wynwood Walls. m&O 80 m a i s o n - o b j e t. c o m