BARBARA BAER CAPITMAN
From page 55
Gianni Versace.
Capitman began her quest when the whole
idea was unpopular and unappreciated. It was
controversial to propose declaring as historic
and protecting a group of Art Deco buildings
barely fifty years old. Architectural education
in the preceding three decades generally
taught that Art Deco was an embarrassing
episode best forgotten. The unique modernist
design style of the early 20th Century did not
even have a proper name until 1966, when
a Paris exhibit — Les Années “25” — coined
the term Art Déco as shorthand for the French
phrase Arts Décoratifs. That exhibit focused on
component styles of the famed 1925 Exposition
Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels
Modernes, and — significantly — styles
excluded from that exhibition, listing them on
the show catalog cover: Art Déco, Bauhaus,
de Stijl and Esprit Nouveau (a name for Le
Corbusier’s work). Shortly thereafter, the term
Art Deco came into use in the English language
and was firmly established when Bevis Hillier
wrote his seminal work entitled Art Deco of the
’20s and ’30s.
Even as Art Deco gained wider admiration,
still the stucco and terrazzo hotels of
Miami Beach were considered unworthy of
recognition, because they were, after all, NOT
the Chrysler building. Capitman soon changed
all that. The low-rise scale, whimsical shapes,
unpredictable and unexpected decorations,
such as plaster pelicans and etched glass
egrets, won the world’s hearts after Capitman’s
long campaign to save them finally succeeded.
The battle was won in a series of ugly
skirmishes wherein some of the District’s
greatest treasures were lost to the bulldozer. The
resultant public outrage — carefully amplified
by the brilliant and calculating Capitman —
forced bewildered and scarcely-comprehending
public officials to pass ever-more stringent
preservation laws, until eventually, it became
illegal to tear down the treasures of Miami
Beach.
Capitman embarked upon a trip in 1981 to
“rediscover” the nation’s Art Deco buildings.
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ART DECO WEEKEND
Accompanied by designer and colorist Leonard
Horowitz, she began a 32-city odyssey to
locate and document these under-appreciated
architectural monuments. She helped establish
Art Deco Societies in several cities.
The emergence and importance of the Art
Deco District in Miami Beach brought with it an
explosion of arts in all forms. Edward Villella’s
Miami City Ballet, Michael Tilson Thomas’ New
World Symphony, Art Center South Florida,
and Wolfsonian-FIU, along with numerous
dance and dramatic companies and dozens of
art galleries, have opened since 1976 when
Capitman initiated her astonishing campaign
to “Save Art Deco.” It has been a mere instant
in Florida’s illustrious 500-years, but a brilliant,
monumental one, for sure.