Miami is known for its Art Deco architecture. There are many buildings in this "style" in the South Beach area. I recently took a walk there and was most surprised by the poor quality of the architecture. The buildings in South Beach are not spectacular--similar ones can be found in many places in the U.S. that had considerable growth (and not much money) in the twenties and thirties. The façades are flat and the massing is unremarkable. Compared to the overwhelming (in size, composition and sophistication) Deco buildings of cities such as New York, those in Miami are not impressive. None of them is valuable in itself.
This does not mean, however, that the Miami Art Deco district is uninteresting. It is fascinating that someone had the vision to restore the area's buildings and convert them into an expression of the city's identity. There are dozens of cities in the U.S. and elsewhere that have lacked this vision and destroyed what was valuable or could have been made valuable of their architecture. Miami has a nice "traditional" district where tourists flock and where commerce thrives. Miami has a neighborhood with which its population identifies, and which brings them together as an urban community. Few cities can take pride in having achieved so much with so little.
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