1111 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach 33139

Thank you Architectural Theory Blog. I didn’t realize that the Herzog & de Meuron building on Miami Beach under construction I had been anticipating (since I saw the sign when I visited in July) was not only complete (this year), but that I had been inside! Multiple times. After chuckling alone and rolling my eyes, I’ve accepted my ignorance and gotten over it.

So this building, at the corner of Lincoln Road and Alton Drive, is a huge addition to the Suntrust Bank Building on the east side of the block. It’s a mixed use program of primarily a parking garage, with retail on the ground floor, a couple residences, and a restaurant on the top floor.

Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron were commissioned by local Miami Beach resident Robert Wennett, a developer focused on urban development through progressive design whose projects can be found all over the US from NY’s meat packing district to Alexandria, Virginia. (Rainey).

The project consists of eight levels at varying heights depending on function. The structure is basically reinforced concrete slabs and columns. The columns taper up and down at varying widths and degrees. I have difficulty out-right praising the project, so I’ll borrow a paragraph from an article last Sunday (March 28, 2010) by Journalist Rowan Moore of The Observer,

“What sets it apart from other car parks is that it is designed as a series of spaces, rather than as a stacking system. Some of the decks have extravagantly high ceilings and some overlook others from mezzanines and balconies. The ramps sweep and splendid views of the city unfurl. Syncopations of high and low decks, and of pillars shaped like Vs, triangles and trapeziums, are set up. There is a nervous energy and, in the thin leading edges of the decks, delicacy.”

The project was designed conjunction with local landscape architects Raymond Jungle who did the pedestrian road/garden adjacent to the building along Lincoln. It consists of three water features, plants, and sculptures all tied together with bold stripes of black and white in the paving. (Mizrahi).

What you don’t read about, but what I have discovered, is that there are essentially two ElevenEleven’s on Lincoln Road. The ‘old’ Suntrust Bank Office Building and the ‘new’ sleek-hip-cool-sexy Herzog & de Meuron multi-use parking garage. They are attached and share the same address, but have separate entrances and styles and insides and outsides. So it’s not crazy that on my hunt for the fifth floor in 1111 Lincoln Road, I found myself in an empty, bright, open-air parking garage instead of low-ceiling 1960’s office building fifth floor next door. (‘Old’ 1111’s entrance is on the north side of the building. You have to pass through an open-air corridor in ‘new’ 1111 to access it.)

The parking garage feels light, airy, and open. What makes it achieve these qualities is change in ceiling heights, like on the second and fifth floors, where the ceilings soar allowing light to pour deep into the building. The high ceilings make it vary un-parking-garage-y since they are a luxury and expense never afforded in this type of economic structure. The other thing that helps make the building so airy is that the railings are thin steel cable wires, that seem to disappear. The frequency and unique shapes of the columns enable the floor slabs to be thinner instead of the more common bulky precast forms characteristic of parking garages.

The central staircase/space is great too. It doesn’t make me loose my breath or thank god I’m there, but it does help open up the few low-ceiling levels and visually tie all the levels together, like monumental, grande central staircases do often do as a gesture found in a lot of public buildings (like the headquarters public Library in Austin features stairs). The thin floor slabs are cut in different ways at different points to engage and invite people to take the stairs and experience the building from different, changing views on the inside.

Something I found interesting with this particular building is the fact that it didn’t scream Herzog & de Meuron at me like many of their other buildings do. I feel like cool ‘skins’ are something that defines their work, like the Dominus Winery, De Young Museum, Walker Art Center (which I suspected was them before knowing it indeed was), or infamous Bird’s Nest of the Olympics. They wrap everything up—except this garage. The architects say they took clues from Miami Beach’s unique style and attitude, so the building is “all muscle without cloth.” (1111).

Frankly, I think it’s more of a skeleton than muscle (not that that’s a bad thing). I also like the building, but don’t love it. It’s one of those things that even though I may not love it, I’m appreciative that it exists and is there because it does make the Beach more interesting/intriguing/vibrant/chic. I like that it seeks to elevate expectations and change perceptions of space and program. It’s noticeable and makes people look twice. I like that it’s there.

And as for the pedestrian part of the new construction, the Raymond Jungle contribution, I like parts of it. I like what they did with the paving: the little pieces of black and white stone laid in fat, uneven stripes perpendicular to the walker. But I think the water features are underwhelming; they seem dirty. And it isn’t green enough (maybe this criticism is pre-emptive because all the plants need time to grow up and get green!) but it seems a little barren. Compared to the rest of Lincoln Road, this space seems a little lost, scale-wise. It’s grappling with huge buildings on all sides, less plant life in the middle, and dominant paving—but with some use and time and adaptations, I think it’ll grow into its own and fit into the rest of Lincoln Road Mall.

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Works Cited:

1111 Lincoln Road. http://www.1111lincolnroad.com/flash.html.

Mizrahi, Adam. "Herzog & DeMeuron Building Nearing Completion in Miami Beach."
        Urban City Architecture. 6 October 2009. 4 April 2010   
        http://www.urbancityarch.com/2009/10/herzog-near-completion/.

Rainey, Tiffany. "Robert Wennett: A Miami Beach Developer Looks to Switzerland
         With an Eye Toward Architecture, and Art." Art Basel Miami 2006.
         http://www.miamisunpost.com/2006%20Art%20Basel/robertwennett.htm.

Beetle Juice

I drive a volkswagon bug. These are some thoughts that come out when I'm squished.

Naples-Miami goes as follows (from memory, if you didn't know):

1. I leave my house and turn left, going south along US41.
                 3 lanes
2. Turn onto (usually) Golden Gate Parkway. Two overpasses.
                 4 lanes
3. Take the ramp onto I-75 S, a.k.a. Alligator Alley 'towards Miami.' Car Toll: $2.50. No overpasses till you get the toll booth on the Miami side, then overpasses become blurred...because the whole road picks up and floats a lot, pretty seamless slopes. Hm.
                2 lanes (ramp) > 1 lane (merge) > 3 lanes > 2 lanes > 3 lanes > 4 lanes
4. Take ramp onto I-595 E towards 'Fort Lauderdale.' Overpass question still applies. It's as if, part of the time you aren't actually driving on land but on some huge concrete platform thing.
                2 lanes (ramp) > 1 lane (merge) > 5 lanes + 'Fast Lane:' HOV/Carpool/Sunpass lane
5. Take ramp onto I-95 S 'towards Miami'
                3 lanes (ramp) > 2 lanes (ramp) > 7 lanes (merger) > 6 lanes (5+fast lane setup)
6. Take (super!) ramp onto I-195 E 'towars Miami Beach' (the ramp is super because it feels like I'm driving a go-cart through the air or something on this one. It's really fun, if you accelerate the curve right.) This road floats over downtown Miami, then touches ground, then goes up and down in two huge overpass/bridges to Miami Beach then forks and there is another little bridge you go over where the speed limit goes down to 35mph (as opposed to 65 mph at the start and 55 mph over the other bridges) This is where the road slows down and becomes 41st Street. You go over another bridge over Indian Creek after a little ways.
               1 lane (super ramp) > 2 lanes > 3 lanes > 2 lanes
7. Turn right onto Indian Creek Drive.
               3 lanes > 1 lane (it's a one-way road and there is construction which narrows it down to 1 lane. Otherwise, from what I can see, it would be 2 lanes + 1 row of parrallel parking along the left side.)

Arrive at my apartment building, block 31.

I just read about the history and reasoning of the interstate highway system. Multi-lane flat roads enabled the military to travel and transport large things from base to base, taking over rest stops when necessary and closing down stretches for emergency aircraft landings. How it was sold to the public, popularized, and changed the American landscape by cutting across farms, grazing fields, through hills and deserts. How it popularized fences. How these roads weren't designed for people.

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In the car gliding across the penninsula, I listened to some form of NPR that was interviewing an author of a book called Why We Make Mistakes. Josh, the author, talked about how people on cellphones basically get tunnel vision and that is why talking on a cell phone while driving is dangerous. He discussed an example where this obscure clown on a unicycle rode through a university campus and then went back and interviewed the people he rode by to see if they had noticed him or not. Sixty percent of people that were walking and talking noticed. Eight percent talking on cell phones noticed.

He also talked about the over-confidence of men and how that worked with the military. He again, discussed examples of how men and women played war games when they were given different scenarios.

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I guess why I brought this up was that I feel like everyone just gets trapped in this sort of tunnel vision. Not just on a cell phone. (I just liked that because it rang so true with me!) And maybe it's a little bit of that, paired with the innate over-confidence/aggression of our military men, that brought our huge interstate highway system into fruition.

What I mean by this is that the whole system seems short sited (perhaps merely the light at the end of the tunnel). Like car companies (and all those related, like tires) spearheaded and sold this road system on the idea of linking places and people riding on the romance of independence, speed, and the automobile. And the military wanted it too for protection, to help defend our nation. But why are we restructuring/hurting our landscape and way of life for this defence? As an outsider, it seems like there is this giant rat race in the military going nowhere. To just keep our imaginary lines the way they are?

One of the things that bothers me and I keep thinking about is that the companies / military isn't really the end all, because they are made up of people. You know? It's always people, breathing, living, thinking, that continue to make these decisions that aren't really healthy, benefitial, or good to us. When did the interest of a group/nation not have the same interest the individuals that make it up? (Aaahhh....these thoughts lead me to so many other tangents! Posts to come I suppose.)

I can't imagine what it would be like if I got places by trains and schedules and days were organized and worked around that. Or that the post system was still super good and simple and everywhere, so the thought of mailing something didn't seem so annoying and inneficient. ...These notions extend into food and practically everything. At what point does speed (and 'efficiency') become null and illogical?

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I study at Starbucks.

I’m reading a book about a guy who built a space to think and write and work. I walked into Starbucks, ordered my tea, and sat down at a small duce to do just that.


There was this older, blonde woman saying goodbye to a couple. She stayed seated. They were loud, and were wrapping up a commiseration conversation about Obama and poor immigrants stealing their hard-earned money. As I got my computer ready, the woman looked my way and sort-of stated a general statement, to know one in particular but for anyone to respond, about the same thing. I didn’t respond. This young guy did. ‘What can you do? It doesn’t help to complain about it if it doesn’t do anything.’ I looked at him sympathetically as he sat down. What was he thinking?

This young guy and this old woman argued, mildly, about politics. They moved on to her cancer history and his recent-grad status. They talked about plans and lack of friends. (His because he just moved here, hers, well, I’d assume because of the way she is). She said she had a beautiful boat. Once, some people she took out on her boat later wrote her a letter afterwards saying that had been the best day of their lives. She asked for his cell number and told him she’d take him out on her boat. They walked out together.

I couldn’t work with while listening. I couldn’t not listen.

Then a little girl and her mom walked in. She climbed in the loud woman’s seat. She wore a hoodie with a magic pocket. I wouldn’t have guessed it was magic but she told me it was. And sure enough, she pulled a zoo out: A lion, a tiger, a rhino, an antelope, three elephants, and a giant horse. Definitely magic. The lion was the leader. The antelope had to ride on the horse’s back because it was too weak.

She went on to tell me that she went to the circus that day, but that there were no animals! (Maybe because she had them all). Her favorite part was at the end, there were two magic brothers that did all these tricks together. She buried her head in the chair while saying she thought they were handsome. She giggled. She blushed. Her mom blushed too.

Coffee shops are weird. I never sat in them till college when I started to go to them as a change of scenery to work and study. I began drinking tea as an adaptation to pay for my space. What happens is I bring my headphones and all my study stuff to go isolate myself in a public place. And everyone practically did that in Austin, a whole coffee shop full of people where you no one talks. A room full of loners. Privacy in public.

Here, that isn’t the case. Which is a relief. People go to them to talk. Politics, cancer, boats, animals, magic.  The stuff spills out when people open their mouths for more than a sip.

It’s not the idealized, picturesque, hyper-isolated space in ‘A Place of My Own.’ But it does provoke thought (in me). Nothing in this post is particularly poignant or inspirational, but for some reason, it stuck with me and inspired something in me.

More Webs.

I marked this part of Outside Lies Magic a while ago:

"[...] trolley companies erected mazes of supply support, and pull-off wires, the whole arrangement that made up what everyone knew as overhead electric catenary and threw weblike shadows over dirt roads and brick streets." (Stilgoe, p.27)

It reminded me of a sketch I did in Milan.

The trolley lines, in big intersections, were the silk threads of giant spiders. (sketch.)

But the silk was unsilky and the spiders were always in hiding. (reality).

Bacardi Building, Downtown Miami

I was disoriented in downtown Miami, trying to make my way back to the highway, familiar territory. I passed this building and passed it again, parked, got out of my car, explored, photographed, and admired. There was someone else that was doing the exact same thing. This was probably two months ago. It's been on my mind.

So the Bacardi Building is actually two buildings and a public plaza. It is an example of Miami Modern, a combination of international style and Latin/Caribbean/tropical design. It's located at the corner of Biscayne Boulevard and 21st Street. (Mizrahi). Now I actually know how to find my way back!

The first building was a tower built in 1963 by Puerto Rican architect Enrique Gutierrez of Sacmag International. It's an eight story tower housing the Bacardi Museum on the first level, a dining room on the top level, and office space on the floors in between. Twenty-eight thousand white and blue hand-painted 6" x 6" ceramic tiles cover the north and south facades in a Spanish style mural by Brazilian artist Francisco Brennand. The west and east facades are made up of thermopane, smoke-tinted glazing and are articulated by vertical white marble tiles and exposed structural concrete. (Kunkel).

The second building is a two-storey square  cantilevered 24 feet on all sides off a central core, 47 feet off the ground. It was designed by architect Ignacio Carrera-Justiz from Coral Gables, Florida and built in 1973 to house the finance and accounting offices. Constructed to withstand hurricane force winds, the walls are made of one inch thick hammered glass tiles composed in beautiful tapestries designed by French manufacturers/artists Gabriel and Jacques Loire after an original painting by German artist Johannes M. Dietz.

Each floor is hung from the roof by 28 tensor rods, supported at the center by the concrete-reinforced central core. The load on each tensor is transferred to the roof in which a crisscross system of post tension beams carry the load from the tensor rods through the central core, plaza and garage, to the foundation. (Kunkel).

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 The cantilevered building is originally what caught my attention, but then when I began to explore the entire site, I really became interested to know more. The online sites do a fine job of giving enough practical details, but there are so many little things that make this particular site wonderful. I think they don't give the plinth enough credit. Yes, practically, a garage sits under it; but raising the entire site up gives everything a completely different feeling, a sense of serenity and proof that yes, it holds something more valuable than the surroundings almost. I immediately think of the plinth at the Taj Mahal, it makes a great building into something sacred.
Also, the floating, symmetrical stair cases that lead to the first level in the tower seem to weigh nothing, as if someone would glide up them into the building.

I'm unfamiliar with 'MIMO,' (Miami Modern design) because I've only thought of Miami as an ode to art deco. But this building is distinctly Miami: which is kind of incredible when you think about it's international style skeleton by American and Puerto Rican architects covered in tiled surfaces by French and Brazilian designers based on German and Spanish art.

Pretty cool, huh?

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These buildings seemed to be unoccupied when I found them. The stairs leading up to the elevated plaza were blocked off with chains and small signs warning against trespassing. I called an online number provided to inquire about public tours. The woman on the other end of the line told me that they no longer hold tours because Bacardi headquarters relocated in November 2009 to a new site in Coral Gables. There is only a security guard and maintenance.

...It makes sense that the Bacardi's would have such wonderful USA headquarters when I read that the other Bacardi buildings in Mexico and Bermuda were commissioned by Mies van der Rohe. Obviously, this family valued good architecture and supported international design. (Kunkel).

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Works Cited:

Kunkel, Joe. "A Proud Symbol of Latin Modernism." Jetset - Designs for Modern Living. 2000. 23 March 2010       http://www.jetsetmodern.com/bacardi.htm.

Mizrahi, Adam. "Historic Bacardi Building." Urban City Architecture. 7 May 2009. 23 March 2010      http://www.urbancityarch.com/2009/05/historic-bacardi-building/.

Sabrinaland! Ah, the joy of Thought!

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by A. Square whisked me away. I want to think outside the box about everything. This book just makes me think that everything I know, on some level, is a box. So as much as I want to escape my box, there is perhaps only a bigger box or a different derivative of a box-based thing that I'd escape into. If that makes sense. There are so many overlapping and reoccurring themes and ideas in these shapes that I can't help but savor them and hopefully continue to understand, and apply them to Sabrinaland.




There is Flatland, from the perspective of A. Square that has experienced Spaceland. He dreamt of Lineland and witnessed Pointland and yearned for a fourth dimension...a more spacious Spaceland.



Soliloquy from Pointland, the Abyss of No Dimensions:



"Infinite beatitude of existence! It is; and there is none else beside It. [...] It fills all space, and that It fills, It is. what It thinks, that It utters; and what It utters, that It hears; and It itself is Thinker, Utterer, Hearer Thought, Word, Audition; it is the One, and yet the All in All. Ah, the happiness, ah, the happiness of Being!"



[A. Square attempted to enlighten the little point that other worlds existed. He spoke to him and said two points make a line.]



"Ah, the joy, and the joy of Thought! What can It not achieve by thinking! Its own Thought coming to Itself, suggestive of Its disparagement, thereby to enhance Its happiness! Sweet rebellion stirred up to result in triumph! Ah, the divine creative power of the All in One! Ah, the joy, the joy of Being!"



God of Pointland cannot conceive plurality, so therefore he understands A.Square's words for his own thought.



This passage, like so many other parts and details and ideas in Flatland are super intriguing to me. I finished the book and find myself recalling all these details in it, analogies and critiques upon society. One of the underlying notions is how to convince people of something that is not within their relm of thought, or limits. I definitely consider myself open, but open within reason is probably more accurate. It's like A. Square crystallizes his concept by literally pointing out the pointlessness of it all, when he introduces Pointland/God of Pointland.



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Academically, I am open to changing my mind and being convinced of ideas/concepts/thoughts because I understand myself to be a student, one who is constantly open to learning more. I have an acknowledgement that I am not an authority in these things, so to speak. This actually kind of applies to all concrete, 'learnable' things like sports or cooking or accounting. That's it.





But when it comes to feelings and emotions and perspectives on situations, I am realizing I am a lot more closed than I thought. I don't really grant authority to others in this matter and find that I do always have to be right in a situation, especially one that I'm involved in. Doesn't everyone think they are right, or what's the point?



Stuff is grey. Often times there is no explicit winning, but just an acknowledgement that you communicated your 'point' and it is understood as that, 'a point.' You have 'a point.' And then I read Flatland, and wonder how often, in how many ways, I am a Point. God of Pointland, the abyss of no dimensions, incapable of really comprehending and getting someone else's 'point,' being able to escape isolation and make a line from my point to theirs.



If it's all about making points, (or that is simply the level I'm at..which is the very bottom/basic/foundation/elementary), how can I start to connect the dots? Points to Lines to Shapes to Volumes to ?...How does this work in Thoughtland, so I can just begin to comprehend the infinite potential of all the 'points' we make?

lines find alcoves

“ ‘Alcoves’: ‘To give a group a chance to be together, as a group, a room must also give them the chance to be alone, in one’s and two’s in the same space.’ […] The pattern of an alcove off a communal space (which also shows up in libraries, restaurants, and public squares) is as natural and right and self-sustaining as the patter of ripples in a patchwork of windblown sand.”


Pollan goes a little whimsical with the ‘windblown sand’ reference in A Place of My Own, but the alcoveness stuck in my head as I sit here waiting. I’m in a large convention-center-like space waiting to audition for yet another fashion show. The room is a big open space when you walk in, and there is a check-in desk to your right. After you check in though, the place is free-reign to settle wherever you’d like until you’re up to walk for the 20 glorious seconds of acceptance or rejection. This is my third day coming, I haven’t been cast (yet). Model settling patterns have been different each time. Things keep being added to the room each time too.

Day 1:

Rows of chairs were lined up ready for a runway down the middle (but empty at this point) and by the time I got here, models were in the chairs. The space where we auditioned though was parallel to this, behind one of the rows of chairs. I’ll post my sketch.

Day 2:

Way more people. It was guys too. This time, it was just a clusterfuck of everyone right at the end of the ‘runway’ space to the right of the door when you come in. (I’ll post my sketch). The chairs were randomly clustered and people stood, sat in them, and sat on the floor. A couple people chose a spot on the wall, but most stayed close to the group. Where we sat yesterday, a runway was being built. Chairs were still lined up, but no one occupied them.

Day 3:

Most girls took a seat on the floor along the wall where the door was and along the sides of the column. If there was no wall spot, they sat on the floor nearby. One small group sat by a column further off. It’s red-carpet style roped off. (Runway almost done, just the background missing.)

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I feel like more of an observer than participator. Modeling is all about being looked at, and I’m a looker right now. Girls meander in, sign in, and find a familiar face. There are elitist groups, the girls that act almost as if this process is a waste of their time because they know that they are going to be cast. They laugh and joke, it’s something light. There are the nervous groups. The girls that are intimidated and encourage each other, practicing off on the side, excited to have the opportunity to audition, but not truly anticipating being cast.

I’m in between, a loner. I feel like I should be here and should be cast, but fuck up at the last minute for one reason or another. I blame my lack of experience and cited that I need to just get used to the walk and what a good walk feels like. Carlitos, my roommate, nodded his head side to side with this. “No no Sabrina, (still shaking) no one ever gets used to it.” Shaking his finger. I receded said I need to get over personal excuses.

Women are lines in Flatland. The upper class women can curve their line smoothly. In my head, I picture a swimming sperm tail, or an eel or snake. There is fluidity to their movements. The lower cast women aren’t smooth, they jerk back and forth. They create corners and angles, not curves and slopes.

We are all lines here. The longer, more curvable line, the more desirable. I’m obviously missing something, I just don’t quite know what it is. So much consistent, blatant rejection is exhausting. It makes you over analyze, draw parallels, align, connect dots.