Miami Beach, Florida

Miami Beach: A City Marking Its First 100 Years of Art Deco

January 2026 marked the centennial of Art Deco architecture in Miami Beach, and the city did not let the occasion pass quietly. The 49th Annual Art Deco Weekend celebration in January drew visitors to Ocean Drive with guided tours, expert-led talks, vintage experiences, and the reveal of the Reefline – a major public art project that merges design with marine habitat offshore. The Delano South Beach, one of the district’s signature properties, also reopened after renovation in early 2026. Miami Beach is making a considered case right now for being more than just sand and party culture, and it is not entirely unconvincing.

The Art Deco Historic District bounded by 5th and 17th Streets, Ocean Drive and Lenox Avenue is worth taking seriously. Around 800 Art Deco buildings survive from the 1920s through 1940s, which is an extraordinary concentration. Many have been restored to their original pastel colours. The Miami Design Preservation League runs walking tours that cover the architectural history properly. The early morning is genuinely the right time here – before 9am the light comes in low from the east and the streets hold that brief quiet before the beach chairs fill and Ocean Drive becomes a runway.

Beyond South Beach

Wynwood on the mainland, about 2 miles north of South Beach, is the better neighbourhood for understanding where Miami’s creative energy actually lives. A former warehouse district transformed by developer Tony Goldman starting in the late 2000s, the Wynwood Walls anchor a curated block of murals by international street artists that has become one of the more influential examples of that phenomenon globally. Development has accelerated: new hotel projects are completing regularly, and the neighbourhood now mixes galleries, restaurants, and residential towers in ways that are simultaneously gentrifying and vital. Go on a Saturday afternoon and turn off the main tourist drag within a block. The AC Hotel and Moxy in Wynwood are good bases if you want to stay in the district rather than on the beach.

The Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) on Biscayne Bay has a strong post-1945 collection and ambitious temporary exhibitions, housed in a Herzog and de Meuron building that is architecturally interesting rather than merely functional. Admission is around $16.

Eating and Drinking

Joe’s Stone Crab on Washington Avenue is the Miami Beach institution for stone crab claws, in season from October 15 through May 15. The claws are excellent. The wait without a reservation in season can reach two hours. They have a takeout window if you cannot face the dining room, and outside of stone crab season the argument for going weakens considerably.

Versailles Restaurant in Little Havana – 20 minutes across the MacArthur Causeway – is the Cuban coffee and food institution: media noche sandwiches, croquetas, cafe con leche at any hour. The surrounding blocks of Calle Ocho have Latin bakeries and lunch counters that represent far better value than anything on Ocean Drive. The Cubano sandwich debate – whether Versailles or some smaller place on 8th Street does it better – is worth having over the second one.

For drinking, the rooftop bars on South Beach are expensive and the views are fine. Brickell City Centre on the mainland draws a more local crowd and better cocktail bars.

Where to Stay

The Fontainebleau is the largest and most famous of the South Beach hotels – a curved modernist building by Morris Lapidus with a pool deck that has had multiple lives since 1954. If you want to be in the Art Deco district, the Betsy or the Albion are both good and less chaotic than the strip. Budget travellers find better rates in Mid-Beach (17th to 40th Street) or north of 40th, where the beach is less crowded and the hotels are less performatively cool.

When to Go

November through April is peak season: warm, dry, relatively manageable crowds by Miami Beach standards. July and August bring brutal humidity, afternoon thunderstorms, and a city that has cleared out in ways that make it less interesting rather than more relaxed. Spring Break in March brings a specific crowd that is fun if you are 21 and easily avoided if you plan around it.