Lapidus was born in 1902 in Eastern Europe but his family immigrated to New York when he was very young. He lived the ‘American dream’ growing up poor but gaining riches and fame through hard work and dedication. He graduated from Columbia’s architecture program and worked as a draftsman (he excelled at drawing) and retail interiors/display windows. This background gave him a different perspective and style when he began designing hotels in Miami Beach. (Gray).
"There were three things--took me years to develop--that created an effect which actually stopped people on the street The stores depend on brilliant light, the use of color, and one other thing I noticed: people do not make a beeline for the thing they want to buy. They meander. So I shaped the walls in unusual forms." - Morris Lapidus (Ringer).
Critics didn’t respect Lapidus for the most part, so while he had commissions pouring in from Miami and all over the country, his work was either omitted from architectural journals and writings or harshly criticized.
"I was ruled out of the architecture profession," said Lapidus. "The Fontainebleau--the high point of my career--was never published. Never." (Ringer).
Fontainebleau is a fantasyland. Lapidus designed the resort to be somewhat like Disneyland for grown-ups, containing everything a vacationer may want all rolled into one. Fontainebleau has pools, spas, restaurants, lounges, a nightclub, department stores, boutiques, and incredible suites—all for the guests to enjoy. It’s been the backdrop for movies such as Scarface and James Bond Goldfinger. One of the most infamous parts of the hotel was the ‘stairway to nowhere,’ which was a grandiose/elaborate staircase that led up to the cloak room. The staircase enabled guests’ to make their grand entrance into the room, so all eyes could be on them while they walked down the staircase. In fact, Fontainebleau was so popular that Lapidus was commissioned by the city to ‘revamp’ Lincoln Road, since the hotel’s popularity killed business on this famous street.
Lapidus proposed to close the street to vehicular traffic, enabling restaurants to bleed out into sidewalks, creating one of the first . He also designed playful concrete fountains and a variety of unique shading devices (utilizing different techniques such as cantilevers, barrel vaults, cut-out slabs) interspersed with large tropical gardens in the center of the road. These elements emphasized the idea of procession for the shopper while simultaneously created dynamic spaces for people to sit, explore, pose, people watch, shop, eat, and relax.
Morris Lapidus retired in 1985 and burned years worth of drawings/sketches/projects. Soon after in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, the ideas of postmodernism became popular, which were embodied in much of Lapidus’s work. Architects began to respect, study, and honor his contributions to American architecture. He died in 2001 at the age of 98 in Miami Beach.
The context of Lapidus's work is what I find most intriguing and incredible. It's as if he was an architect before his time. His pop ideas and whimsical designs were created while the profession swooned over the sterile, international style designs and his concepts and ideas about retail/shopping/public spaces has became an exemplar model for later outdoor malls all over the world. Lapidus responded more directly to what his projects were about and who they were for...which were people, in a country that had just come out of World War II. People wanted to relax, have fun, feel special, and escape.
In school we are taught to rigorously question and reason why there is a curve, color, or cut-out, or anything non-essential or not standardized. But what Lapidus recognized and exploited, was the purpose/function of his projects were to entertain, pamper, and awe people...so all those things we were taught to be critical of and rational in our thinking were essential in themselves. You can't escape the everyday, practical world without throwing it's rigorous logic and rules out. Lapidus's buildings were not logical/practical/straight forward aesthetically or economically, but they were incredibly, incredibly successful. Which counts for so much (in both the real world and the fantasy worlds he created), and seemingly not much in the architectural world. Lapidus understood Las Vegas twenty years before Venturi learned from it. After all, what's so wrong with designing something only for the fun of it?
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It's weird: if I had been introduced to Morris Lapidus's stuff with no formal architectural education, I probably would have liked it. If I had read about it in architectural journals or texts, I probably wouldn't have cared for it. But after being in the world's he created (because indeed they are whole new worlds!) I am head over heals for him. After reading about postmodernism and studying Venturi's mom's house or the tower (who's architect I'm blanking out on!) that is like a big piece of furniture, I've always disliked it. It seemed so pointless and fake.
In reading Michael Pollan's book, A Place of My Own, he talks about how he thinks that the Writing House he was building was, in essence, a postmodern hut. I remember reading that part and cringing at the word and thinking how awful it would have been if I had been building a place of my own only to discover it could be labeled 'postmodern.' Eww. Charlie, the architect, didn't seem to love the 'postmodern' label Pollan stamped on the shack either...
But now, after walking along Lincoln Road (tons!) and being in Fontainebleau, purely for the reasons they were designed and built (to escape and have fun!), I love it. His curves, colors, and wit have seduced me. So now am I not only determined to go out of my way to check out the other Lapidus hotels along the strip and read the books he's written (only on reserve at Miami's main library, as opposed to the Miami Beach Branch I visited), but I’m reevaluating my feelings about postmodern architecture. Maybe I need step down off my little architectural pedestal and listen to brain and instincts tell me what I like and how a space makes me feel as opposed to what I’ve read about how I’m supposed to feel.
I've been trying to figure out the best way to put this next thought, but every way sounds kind of stupid so I'm just going to let it be like that: In a girl world, I feel like Lapidus designed the funny guy. It's that guy that becomes more and more attractive the more you are with him, because he makes you feel really good. The one’s you actually fall for and want to spend time with; not the one’s you just want to look at in magazines or from far away.
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Austin, Tom. "Fontainebleau's Extreme Makeover." Travel + Leisure. March 2009. 16 April 2010 http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/fontainebleau-hotels-extreme-makeover/1.
Gray, Christopher. "An Architect Who Delighted in the Flamboyant." New York Times. 10 April 2005. 15 April 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/realestate/10scap.html?_r=1.
"Miami Beach History: Morris Lapidus Biography." Miami Beach 411. 2009. 16 April 2010 http://www.miamibeach411.com/History/bio_lapidus.html.
Mizrahi, Adam. "Morris Lapidus at Lincoln Road." Urban City Architecture. 5 October 2005. 16 April 2010 http://www.urbancityarch.com/2009/10/morris-lapidus-at-lincoln-road/.
"Morris Lapidus." New York Times. 16 April 2010 http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/l/morris_lapidus/index.html.
Ringer, Jonathan. "Lapidus of Luxury." Metropolis Magazine. 2007. 16 April 2010 http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0101/ml.htm.
http://www.fontainebleau.com/
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