Can art save a city? In just the past decade, Miami has taken to the arts like a drowning man to a life raft. Now, the city is booming and Miami has become the artistic heart of the New World.
An outdoor art piece called Oceanfront at Art Basel Miami Beach, 2009
It’s as if Miami’s leaders all went out and read Richard Florida’s bestseller The Rise of the Creative Class when it was published in 2002. At the time, the author ranked San Francisco, Austin, San Diego, Boston and Seattle as the top five creative American cities with a population of over one million. His controversial theory contends that because such cities have more creative workers – among them artists and arts managers – these are the cities that exhibit a higher level of economic development. On his website, the University of Toronto professor says that the creative class will determine “which cities will thrive or wither.”
The year 2002 is also the year Art Basel Miami Beach opened. The sister event to the original Art Basel exhibition in Switzerland, the Miami Beach version takes place every December in the renovated Art Deco District of South Beach. Referred to as the Olympics of the art world, the show is perhaps the most important art exhibition in the world and is certainly, as the organizers insist, a cultural and social highlight for the Americas with over 2000 artists and 250 of the world’s top galleries represented.
Nautilus acoustic canopy over a stage at the Arsht Centre
Two other major developments in Miami – the opening of the Adrienne Arsht Centre for the Performing Arts and of the New World Centre – have pushed the city to the forefront of the art world and generated a new energy and pride of place.
The Performing Arsht
“We work in the downtown, but we don’t live in the downtown,” says Suzette Espinosa Fuentes of Miami residents. “That’s entirely changed.”
Espinosa Fuentes is the assistant vice president of public relations for the five-year-old Adrienne Arsht Centre, and she believes that the half billion dollar facility is the figurehead for her city’s revitalization. Half a million people a year attend an Arsht Centre event. A ten minute taxi ride from dozens of brand new glass condo towers and from the world’s busiest cruise ship port, Espinosa Fuentes believes the Centre is one of the main reasons people are returning to a downtown that was until recently run down and dangerous.
Suzette Espinosa Fuentes in the lobby of the Arsht Centre
The design of the building itself is reminiscent both of Miami’s architectural history and of the importance of cruising to the city. Inside, balconies overlap as if they were decks on a cruise ship. There’s a cool terrazzo floor similar to those in so many Miami homes and hotels, as well as porthole-like windows, polished wood railings and nautilus shell structures in the ceilings of both major theatres, the Ziff Ballet Opera House with 2,400 seats and the Knight Concert Hall with 2,200 seats. The Thomson Plaza for the Arts, an outdoor social and performance space, joins these two main theatres.
Function is married to aesthetics at the Arsht. Of the Knight Concert Hall design, Espinosa Fuentes says, “The hall is like an instrument – you can tune it depending on the kind of performance.” The walls are adjustable and the giant gold nautilus shell in the ceiling improves the sound quality. In the Opera House, a similar structrue serves as an acoustic canopy. It descends so that lights and sound equipment can be serviced without the need of a catwalk.
Entrance to the New World Centre
But it’s the Centre’s programming that makes it the heartbeat of the city. In the theatre and opera house, the likes of Cirque du Soleil, renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman, top blues artists like Robert Cray and Shemekia Copeland and jazz great Wynton Marsalis round out a program that features the Miami City Ballet, the Florida Grand Opera and major touring Broadway musicals.
And the Centre’s outreach strategy is nothing short of inspirational. The goal at the Arsht is to give every child in Miami an artistic experience, whether at the Centre itself or right in the city’s schools to which the Arsht brings physical theater and circus arts through music, dance and theater programs and projects that come to the schools. “It’s why I work here,” says Suzette Espinosa Fuentes of the Arsht’s efforts at reaching children.
New Ideas for the New World
Within sight of the Arsht, the just-opened New World Centre – designed by the world’s premier architect, Frank Gerhy – is the innovative home to a kind of musical experiment, the New World Symphony. Michael Frisco, director of marketing, quotes founder and artistic director Michael Tilson Thomas when he says, “We want a building that’s about the future of music, not the history of it.”
Inside, the 30-member New World Symphony learns, practices and performs. The symphony is a training academy and has been since its inception in 1987. The Centre is its campus. Over 1000 musicians apply for those 30 positions. The world’s best young musicians come find out what playing in a symphony is all about during the 35-week, September to May season before going on to join the world’s great orchestras and ensembles. The Centre offers them a monthly stipend plus accommodations in one of two former hotels refurbished as residences.
Michael Frisco in the theatre at the New World Centre
The Centre’s theatre is made up of one main stage and four satellite stages that guarantee views for everyone in the audience – no seat is further than 13 rows from a stage. “Not only are you around the music,” says Frisco, “but the music is around you.” A new concept for symphony music, projectors and lights add visuals to every performance. Late at night, the space opens up as the Pulse, a unique nightclub where there’s dancing to electronica and to contemporary classical music set to a DJ’s beat.
Outside, the right half of the building is what Frisco calls “a cool night-lit skin” onto which the concert inside is projected. The Centre also offers a film series. A string of 167 speakers is hidden in what look like pipes that surround SoundScape Park in front of the building. These “wallcasts” are free.
In fact, the New World Centre is the best deal in Miami. “It’s meant to be used, to be enjoyed,” says Frisco. At as little as $2.50 a seat inside for half hour mini-concerts and free outdoor wallcasts, it’s not surprising that ticket sales represent only 11% of the Centre’s revenue. “A concert costs less than a cup of coffee,” says Frisco. He believes that the Centre is building a young audience for contemporary and classical music. It’s also made Miami into a world centre for the advancement and enjoyment of music.
Given the rapid rise of the arts and the role these new facilities are playing in the equally rapid revitalization of Miami, this city might soon break into that upper echelon of Richard Florida’s ranking of America’s top creative cities. Together with the annual, world class Art Basel Miami Beach, the renovation of the Art Deco district on South Beach and smaller developments like the outdoor exhibit of graffiti art at Wyndwood walls, the Arsht and the New World Centre are creating a new Miami – one that’s smart, hip and fun – and along the way, making a name for itself as the surprising artistic centre of the new world.
Read more from Darcy Rhyno’s trip to Miami:
Miami Mode: Homes Away From Home
Photo Credits
Art Basel Miami Beach exhibition, 2009 shots of “Oceanfront”. Courtesy MCH Swiss Exhibition (Basel) Ltd.”
All other Miami photos © Darcy Rhyno. All Rights Reserved.
Recent Darcy Rhyno Articles:
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- The Detox Myth: How Celebrity Culture Sells Us What We Don’t Need
George Burden wrote:
A good angle on Miami, Darcy, and nicely covered.