February 26, 2003 at 7pm Prakriti Foundation presented "Paradise Regained? Art Deco Architecture and the Reinvention of Miami Beach, Florida", Illustrated talk by Dr. Mary Norman Woods, Cornell University, NY
Venue: Sundar Mahal, Padmavathy Road, Jeypore Colony, Chennai
Although Miami Beach, Florida began as a millionaires' playground designed in the Mediterranean Revival style in the early 1900s, it reinvented itself as an Art Deco paradise for working and middle class Americans in the 1930s and 1940s. Reinterpreting the modern building typologies and architectural forms of New York, Miami Beach became a miniature Manhattan where summer spends the winter. Preservation of the Art Deco buildings in the 1980s and 1990s rejuvenated Miami Beach's reputation and economy, which had declined in the 1960s and 1970s. Miami Beach became a magnet for celebrity tourists, fashion models and designers, film and television directors.
Dr. Mary Norman Woods is an associate professor of urban and architectural history at Cornell University, New York. She is the author of From Craft to Profession (University of California Press, 1999). Recent publications include contributions to Cass Gilbert: A Life in Architecture (W W Norton, 2001), The Architecture of the Night (Prestel, 2002), and After-Image and the City (Cornell University Press, 2003). She is a 2002-2003 Fulbright research fellow in India, working on a study of women architects, past and present, in India. |
This lecture examines the assumptions that have surrounded this distinctive tropical modernism, assumptions that continue to shape scholarship, preservation and contemporary design. What are the lessons, if any, that Miami Beach has for the preservation and development of Art Deco districts in Habana, Cuba and Mumbai (India)?
