Transit Miami

The first thing I always want to talk about, when I talk about Miami, is Chad Oppenheim. Be forewarned, I may gush. Ever since this young architect appeared on the scene we have had the pleasure of one exciting building after another being proposed and built by this edgy, self-expressed talent. The level of achievement of both built and conceptual projects, by an architect so young, is nearly unprecedented.Among his first built structures in Miami Beach was the boutique building Ilona. Tucked away on a secluded street south of fifth street, and having seen renderings of several projects it was a strange experience to happen upon the completed building by mistake. Oppenheim’s work began intimately connected to the tropical modernist precedents set forth by the MiMo school. After what was clearly a profound analysis of the period, Oppenheim set out to create a new, more minimal, purist and luxurious interpretation. Simply put, he created a housing for all of the most beautiful and unique properties of South Florida life: light, color, air…sea and sky, the passing of the day. Stopped in my tracks as the building came into view, I felt that I could see the future of design in Miami, and it was good. As with much of his work to date, the design is at first quiet, restrained, and yet continues to reveal itself and its subtle beauty.Another South Beach jewel is yet another small residential building, Ilona Bay. Here we began to see the sophisticated relationship to the sculptor Donald Judd and his minimalist repetition of form. The geometric white grid enclosures that make up the balconies, are an apparent foreshadowing to the series of skyscrapers in store for downtown Miami. Judd’s complicated study of a numerous identical shapes, and the richness of such, based on perspective and light were the inspiration for the period in Oppenheim’s work that included Ice, Ice 2, and Ten Museum Park, as well as Sky and Space 01 in North Bay Village. As in the past, what seems at first, quite simple, is in truth an analysis of order and sublime proportion. That Oppenheim is able to achieve this in the face of program (number of units, required square footage, balconies etc.) and budgets is almost unbelievable.

To the great loss of Miami urbanists and art lovers, several of Oppenheim’s projects have been mired in difficulty with developers and the erratic whims of the real estate market, and may never come to fruition. Several of the above mentioned structures may never be realized, as well as the dynamic Park Lane Tower. Perhaps the greatest surprise, and disappointment is the recent news that 3 Midtown may not be built. This building, is what I believe to be, the most beautiful of the recent boom. Illustrating his sensitivity to each individual site and his desire to deliver to the future residents, an extraordinary experience of Miami, the building is brilliantly twisted and torqued out of the site lines of the two neighboring buildings. The resulting trapezoidal tower creates exciting relationships with the other portions of the buildings, the mews and the low-rise. The structural exoskeleton is a constantly evolving composition of obscuring elements and reveals. This exercise is even carried out on the roof, wrapping the top of the tower in an artful camouflage of the buildings service features, a feature sadly absent in most contemporary building designs. The fenestration on the exposed sides develops into a massive abstract canvas of light absorbing concrete and light reflecting glass, hence blackness in opposition to emitting light after dark. I sincerely hope that the cancellation of this project is a misrepresentation.While the very lofty conversation of Donald Judd and architecture may be to abstruse for the taste of some, it seems that another parallel can easily be drawn with the discussion of the very nearly finished Ten Museum Park. Like a diamond, that on one hand seems only to be a white shape of a stone, the 50 story tower on Biscayne Boulevard, towers above us as a simple gleaming white shape. Upon closer examination of the stone, the facets inside emit an ever shifting, evolving show of extraordinary shadow and brilliant light, that is undeniably hypnotic. So too, as the South Florida sun rises and illuminates the many complicated facets of the tower’s design, there is a most enjoyable, ever transforming display of darkness and luminosity, straight through til the sun sets, and reflects off of the vastly contrasting, elegantly proportioned back facade. Check it out.