Morris Lapidus | Architecture of the American Dream
Morris Lapidus was an architect, primarily known for his Neo-baroque "Miami Modern" hotels constructed in the 1950s and 60s, which have since come to define that era's resort-hotel style, synonymous with Miami and Miami Beach
If a prophet is without honor in his own country, Morris Lapidus was a prophet who lived to see his dream fulfilled on a limited basis.
His self-described architecture of the American Dream, flamboyant in the extreme and expressive of the heights of 50s and 60s exuberance, was reviled in its day. Critics called his Miami Beach hotels boarding house baroque, the epitome of the apogee, emblems of tail-fin chic, and the nation's grossest national product. The New York Times called it superschlock. Pornography of architecture, sniffed Art in America. The Miami Herald joked that it was probably not too disturbing to people who have lost their eyesight.
As of 1962, Lapidus said, The critics still hated my work, whether curved or bent, but clients wanted more and more of the sweeping forms. Lapidus's luxurious high-rise hotels came to define the leading American resorts, especially those of Florida and Las Vegas. By 1985, when critics still didn't appreciate his work, he folded up his office and said to hell with it. It took two large trucks to consign all the materials to the flames, he wrote in his autobiography Too Much is Never Enough. He had billed $50 million during his career, and should have realized that this sum was the surest mark of appreciation in the land of the American Dream.
Just as Lapidus was burning his life's work, postmodernism was taking hold in architecture, and the buildings he had designed three decades earlier became prophetic. In the years before he died at age 98, Lapidus resumed his design work and received accolades. He could write, plausibly, if perhaps wrongly, that his ideals would be the model for twenty-first century architecture.
Eden Roc
Lapidus used curvy and innovative designs that were widely criticized at the time they were being built. At the time it was built, the Eden Roc was considered a vision of the Italian Renaissance. Today the style he invented has been coined Miami Modernist Architecture (MiMo)
FontaineBleau
Morris Lapidus broke with the conventions of his times to create what he called “an architecture of joy”. Fontainebleau has since been recognized as a masterpiece of Modernist architecture, but Modernism with an edge, and with plenty of humor and plenty of art.
The Olympia Theater
The Olympia Theater is an outstanding example of American movie palace architecture. Built for Paramount Enterprises, the Olympia was the first air-conditioned building in Miami-Dade County and the second atmospheric theater in the United States.
Just a Few of the Other Buildings Lapidus Designed Included:
