From interactive museums to cool street art, design has become one of Miami’s biggest draws. Helen Dalley rounds up some of the best creative experiences in the city.
The playground of the rich and famous – Shakira, Sylvester Stallone and LeBron James live here and the Kardashians love to visit – Miami is where the Atlantic meets the Caribbean, with white-sand beaches, palm trees, neon-lit streets, raucous nightlife and street art all in plentiful supply. Home to the largest concentration of Art Deco architecture in the world – there are more than 800 examples in less than one square mile – the pastel-coloured buildings lined up on Ocean Drive demand to be photographed, while immersive art experiences like Superblue are pushing the boundaries of what an art museum can be. Read on for our definitive design guide to the Magic City, which takes in design-conscious stays, artistic experiences and restaurants that embrace design.
Design Conscious Properties
There’s no better place to lie your head than citizenM Miami Brickell. The hotel brand is the self-styled king of affordable luxury, and its Miami property boasts plenty of thought-provoking art: we love local artist Jen Stark’s vivid mural on the building’s façade and Lakwena Maciver’s kaleidoscopic piece Good Life. The rooms are bijoux and beautifully stripped back and you can control lights, blinds, and the TV with an app or in-room tablet, but really, it’s all about hanging out in the living room, a residential-style space where long, inviting sofas are artfully positioned under warm lighting, and where the hotel’s art collection will encourage you to start a conversation with the person sat opposite you.
Where to Experience Design (and The Shop!)
The art world descends on the city for Art Basel Miami Beach held in late November/early December, and some of the industry’s biggest galleries (The Modern Institute, David Zwerner, White Cube) are in attendance: last year, guests were treated to new immersive artworks from David Hockney and Jimmy DeSana’s photos of 1970s New York.
While we wouldn’t advise visiting Miami during this super-busy time (accommodation is expensive and hard to find, for starters), there are plenty of design attractions year-round. Arguably the most innovative is Superblue Miami, an art museum that invites guests to interact with art, as you walk through a mirrored labyrinth by Es Devlin, touch teamLab’s light-based displays and walk under the installation Pulse Topology by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer where thousands of light bulbs glimmer to the heartbeat of museum visitors.
Other galleries worth checking out include the Rubell Family Collection, which is home to one the US’s biggest contemporary art collections, including works by Keith Haring, Jean Michel Basquiat, Yayoi Kusama and Liu Wei, and the Gary Nader Art Center in midtown for Latin American art plus iconic names like Warhol, Lichtenstein, Monet and Manet.
There are also several Art Deco Tours in Miami – some even incorporate drink stop-offs like the Art Deco and Cocktail Tour – but the definitive, and official one, is organised by the Miami Design Preservation League, a non-profit that uses proceeds from tickets towards protecting the architectural and environmental integrity of Miami Beach and the surrounding area. During the tour, you’ll admire the city’s candy-coloured hotels, which feature cool Art Deco details like porthole windows and bold vertical bands; we love the bright yellow accents on the Leslie Hotel, and the cool mint shade of the Carlyle.
Put your questions to the authoritative tour guides, who certainly know their stuff and enjoy testing guests’ knowledge on all things Art Deco and introducing fun facts: did you know the shelves on top of windows are referred to as “eyebrows” and kept the sun out in pre-aircon days? Don’t forget to call in at their Art Deco museum afterwards, which delivers a good overview of the three major design styles in Miami: Mediterranean Revival, Art Deco and Miami Modern, or MiMO.
Even shopping can be a creative experience if you head to Miami Design District, where installations include Buckminster Fuller’s Fly’s Eye Dome, a fibreglass sphere you can step inside, and 2×4 studio’s monochrome vortex, which will unwittingly draw you in. The design district is chock-full of high-end fashion brands and populated by a young, hip crowd where oversized sunnies and leather trousers are de rigueur and the aroma of expensive perfume hangs heavily in the air. Once you’ve checked out the art, then shop ‘til you drop at fashion boutiques including Alexander McQueen, Gucci, Fendi and Louis Vuitton, many of which are housed in specially-designed buildings: check out Dior’s sculptural concrete panels and Fendi’s facade, which is repainted in a bright hue every couple of months.
Don’t miss another Miami design icon, too: Wynwood Walls, an outdoor museum of international street art with more than 40 hand-sprayed murals. Nine more were unveiled during the recent Miami Art Week, including works from Spain’s DULK and Bicicleta Sem Freio from Brazil. This hip district also welcomed its first hotel, Arlo Wynwood, with a graffitied exterior by Douglas Hoekzema, late last year.
Where to Eat: Design-led Restaurants
Situated in happening Brickell, the quirkily named Dolores But You Can Call Me Lolita was once the site of an old fire station, built in the popular Mediterranean Revival style by architect H. Hastings Mundy, with a two-story hipped roof, arcaded porch and stucco walls. Call in for their Serrano ham croquettes, Mexican Ox-tail tacos and lobster quesadillas. Just around the corner from Dolores is one of the most exclusive tables in town, Sexy Fish Miami, which features original artwork by Damien Hirst and surreal fish lamps designed by starchitect Frank Gehry: try the yellowtail tartar with bacon and caviar, or the king crab and bone marrow with truffle and toast.
For something more heritage, check into Mandolin, an Aegean bistro situated in a former 1940s home in the Design District that serves up more-ish hummus and tzatziki with crunchy veg and bread to start plus other authentic plates like baked feta with tomatoes, chilli flakes and peppers; and fried calamari with an almond torator dip. If you love vintage décor, then swing by Casa Florida, where you can dine on broiled East Coast oysters and sip coconut mojitos aboard a restored 1960s bus.
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