South Beach, Miami Beach’s southern neighborhood, is synonymous with Art Deco. The Bass Museum of Art, the Shorecrest Hotel and the Amsterdam Palace were its first Art Deco-influenced buildings. It was 1920’s and many rich families from the north were looking for new places for their vacations. The country was embracing modernity and modernity got them bringing Art Deco to their construction projects. With 13 new hotels in 1936 and 23 in 1939, Art Deco buildings soon became part of South Beach landscape.

The designers forced the style and adapted it to the fantasies of the American vacationers of the time. The tropics, the famous ocean liners of the time, like the Queen Mary and the Normandie, and Hollywood glamour, inspired architects. They used vibrant colors, streamline curves to create a nautical feel, open round windows, and included glass and steel and winding staircases in the design and construction of the buildings.

Look for that gems the Colony Hotel on Ocean Drive, Essex House, Crescent Hotel and the Hotel Webster, the Century Hotel. There are many more, just walk along Collins Avenue and Ocean drive and you will get a feel of the past in the present.

If architecture and Art Deco is your thing, the Art Deco Welcome Center has guided tours, and exhibitions and the Miami Design Preservation League organizes an annual Art Deco Weekend Festival.