All of
All of the classics, but in white: Eames LaChaise, Barcelona Chairs, LeCorbusier tables - all scream Miami. Definitely look up some lesser known designers - Probber did some bimorphic work, I'm sure Miami is bulging with Gianni Sacca di Frutta's work as well. I'm sure others would be better able to tell you architects etc.
I think Lucifersum is...
I think Lucifersum is talking about Miami Vice period modernism and not really 1950's Modernism... 😉 Not sure what period you're looking for...
I'm no expert on the subject, but if you're interested in the 1950's Miami style of modernism, you should definitely check out architect Wahl Snyder & designer George Farkas. I have an article showing a 'bachelor pad' they did on Hibiscus Island, Miami Beach 1950, featuring a huge kidney shaped indoor pool with a view of the sea through a big panorama window and each and every room open up directly to the pool. Kind of like California Modernism including VKG chaises etc, but much much more glam...
Not 1920's Art Deco, as much as
1930's Streamline Modern...lots of stucco and horizontal lines.
By the way,there's always been a combination of Art Deco (really early to mid 1920's) and Streamline Modern (really Depression era design).
I have thought to explain the difference that Art Deco is vertical and Streamline Modern is horizontal.
streamline/deco/modern
All the stuff that gets lumped today into 'art deco' or 'streamline modern' is just the early expressions of what the designers themselves thought was simply 'modern'. Gilbert Rodhe famously loathed art deco. His iconic and short-lived line for Herman Miller, (he took HM in a totally new modern direction) was in his own view totally 'modern'. He would have been horrified to hear his designs associated with art deco.
That whole flowing, linear style was an attempt to express a totally modern aesthetic in reaction to the depression and anti art-deco. Simple horizontal forms with minimal decoration were a natural aesthetic shift in a time of depression. Excessive ornamentation, a deco trademark, would seem ostentatious and garish (I'd love a tour of the Madoffs' penthouse.)
Radio city music hall is not art deco. Despite thousands, nay millions of references to it as such. Raymond Hood was a closet modernist who in Ayn Randian villian fashion wrapped a neo gothic facade on a modern tower and won the Chicago Trib design competition in '22.
By the time of the RCMH he was almost comfortable with modernism. The hall does have a bit of artsy fartsy decorative embellishment, but a fraction of the trib tower and much closer to the Frank Lloyd Wright idea of a uniquely American modern.
How right you are, James
all of your examples are 100% streamline modern and 0% art deco.
It's horrific that the world of art and collecting have dumbed Streamline Modern into Art Deco...two completely different and quite unreleased designs......
but some of the Donald Deskey lighting specifically designed for the Radio City Music Hall are quite Art Deco....go figure.
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