Tropical Waves: South Florida Contorts Modernism

Speakers

Arthur Marcus

Deborah Desilets, RA

David McKinney

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Tropical Waves: South Florida Contorts Modernism

Architects in mid-century South Florida, working in a subtropical context, eagerly appropriated the Modern Movement but also challenged its rational foundations, its functionalism, and its aesthetics. Responding to climate and landscape, but also to the region’s vocation as a touristic hotspot and to the expectations of diverse waves of immigrants, many architects indulged in flights of whimsy, luxury, and theatricality, creating environments designed to appeal to visitors and the global market. Viewed with more than a half-century of detachment, the ensemble of this work reveals South Florida as an imaginative laboratory where architectural Modernism was tested, expanded and embellished.

Speakers & Presentations
  • The Architecture of Whimsy: Mid-20th-Century-Modern Architecture in South Florida
    Arthur Marcus 
  • A Coney Island State of Mind: Morris Lapidus
    Deborah Desilets  
  • Morris Lapidus Abandons Bourgeois Baroque for Tropical Brutalism
    David D. McKinney  
Moderator

Allan Shulman

 

All sessions take place at the University of Miami School of Architecture. Exact classroom locations to be announced.

Moderator

Allan Shulman, FAIA, LEED AP

Allan Shulman, FAIA, LEED AP, is the Founding Principal of Shulman + Associates. He is an architect, author, editor and curator. He also serves as a Professor at the University of Miami School of Architecture. Allan's research focuses on themes of modernism, tropicality and urbanism. Published works include Building Bacardi: Architecture, Art and Identity, Miami Modern Metropolis: Paradise and Paradox in Midcentury Architecture and Planning; The Discipline of Nature: Architect Alfred Browning Parker in Florida; and as a co-author, The Making of Miami Beach: 1933-1942: The Architecture of Lawrence Murray Dixon; and Miami Architecture: An AIA Guide.

Speakers

Deborah Desilets, RA

Deborah Desilets is a Florida Registered Architect, with a BA/BS and MA in Architecture from FAMU. Desilets’ focused on architectural technologies and a preponderance for poetics in design in college. In 1985 she came to Miami and quickly applied her expertise in the office of ARQUITECTONICA establishing their first computer aided design lab. An “observer,” she saw a gap in the education of fellow architects. To remedy this, she took one year off from her professional career at ARQ to teach seniors at the Design and Architecture Senior High School second graduating class. Here she founded the Professional Options Program for students as well as taught innovative Computer Aided Design. 

David McKinney

David McKinney is an architectural historian and retired museum administrator. He directed the statewide arts network in Virginia, served as the director of the U.S. Interior Department Museum then as chief of cultural resources in the Office of the Secretary of Interior, and retired from the federal government as Chief Historian of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. As a contributing author to the catalogue The Making of Virginia’s Architecture, he outlined the practice of art deco architect Stanhope Johnson.