Famous Landmarks in Miami
Its 300-tower skyline rose around a handful of 1910s-20s Revival-style survivors.
Miami's landmark buildings date almost entirely from one boom in the 1910s and 1920s, when developers borrowed Mediterranean and Renaissance Revival styles from Spain and Italy to sell the city as a subtropical resort. Vizcaya, a Renaissance Revival villa and gardens on Biscayne Bay, was built in Coconut Grove for businessman James Deering. A few miles away in Coral Gables, the Biltmore Hotel opened as a Mission Revival resort with a tower modeled on a Seville cathedral's. Downtown, the Freedom Tower rose in the same decade as a newspaper's Mediterranean Revival headquarters. All three now stand apart from the high-rise skyline built up around them since: over 300 towers, 70 of them above 492 feet, as the city grew into a center of finance and international trade.
Freedom Tower
1925 · Schultze and Weaver
A Mediterranean Revival skyscraper on a wide downtown boulevard, one of the city's earliest tall towers, its historic ornamentation set apart from the glass high-rises around it and its base folded into a college campus that now uses it as an art museum.
The Freedom Tower opened in 1925 as the Mediterranean Revival headquarters of a Miami newspaper. It gained an unrelated second role decades later: through the 1960s the federal government used the building to process and assist Cuban refugees arriving after the 1959 revolution, work that gave the tower its current name. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 2008. Miami Dade College now uses the building as a contemporary art museum and offices for its arts programs.
- The tower's current name comes from its use, in the 1960s, as a processing center for Cuban refugees fleeing the 1959 revolution.
- It was originally known as the Miami News and Metropolis Building, after the newspaper it was built for.
Photo: Photograph: Radomianin (Public domain)
Vizcaya Museum and Gardens
1914 · F. Burrall Hoffman
A Renaissance Revival villa with Baroque touches standing on a bay, fronted by formal Italian Renaissance-style gardens, native woodland, and a compound of historic outbuildings that together make up the wider estate.
Vizcaya was built in 1914 on Biscayne Bay as the villa and estate of businessman James Deering, of the Deering McCormick-International Harvester fortune. F. Burrall Hoffman designed the main house, Paul Chalfin directed the design, and Diego Suarez laid out the Italian Renaissance-style gardens; Iwahiko Tsumanuma, working as associate architect under the name Thomas Rockrise, also contributed. Miami-Dade County now owns the estate, which is open to the public as a museum despite also being listed among America's most endangered historic places.
- The associate architect, Iwahiko Tsumanuma, worked under the adopted name Thomas Rockrise.
- Despite its National Historic Landmark status, the estate has been listed among America's Most Endangered Historic Places.
Photo: Leslie Platt (CC BY 2.0)
Miami Biltmore Hotel
1926 · Schultze & Weaver
A Mission Revival resort building fronted by a tall tower modeled on Seville Cathedral's Giralda, set beside what was once the largest swimming pool in the world.
The Miami Biltmore Hotel opened in 1926 in Coral Gables, designed by Schultze & Weaver for developers John McEntee Bowman and George Merrick as part of the Biltmore hotel chain. Its tower, modeled on Seville Cathedral's Giralda, briefly made it Florida's tallest building until 1928. The hotel's pool, once the largest in the world, employed swimming instructor Johnny Weissmuller, later the screen Tarzan. The building went on to serve as a wartime hospital and a University of Miami medical campus until 1968, then stood empty for years before reopening as a hotel in 1987.
- Its pool, once the largest in the world, employed a swimming instructor who later played Tarzan on screen.
- It served as a hospital and medical school campus before standing empty for years and reopening as a hotel only in 1987.
Photo: Jorge Royan (CC BY-SA 3.0)
History
Vizcaya, the earliest of the three, went up in 1914 as the Biscayne Bay estate of businessman James Deering, its villa and Italian Renaissance-style gardens designed with F. Burrall Hoffman as architect. The Freedom Tower followed in 1925 as the Mediterranean Revival headquarters of a Miami newspaper, and the Miami Biltmore Hotel opened in 1926 as a Mission Revival resort in Coral Gables, briefly the tallest building in Florida until the Dade County Courthouse overtook it in 1928. The Freedom Tower later gained a second identity: through the 1960s it processed Cuban refugees fleeing the 1959 revolution, work that helped earn it National Historic Landmark status in 2008. Downtown Miami's skyline has since grown into the third-largest in the United States, with more than 300 high-rises rising around these older, lower buildings.