The Making of Miami Beach: 1933 1942: The Architecture of Lawrence Murray Dixon [Hardcover]

Jean-Francois Lejeune (Author), Allan Shulman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 7, 2001

Lawrence Murray Dixon (1901-1949) was a native Floridian whose career started in New York where he worked for Schultze and Weaver, the firm famous for designing the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Like most of the architects practicing in the boomtown that was post Depression Miami Beach, Dixon was outside the American architectural establishment-- he did not receive a complete architectural education, nor did he complete anything like a grand tour. He was nevertheless the most prolific architect practicing in Miami Beach in the late 1930s and early 1940s, building all types of commercial and residential buildings from the smallest house to the most lavish oceanfront hotels. Perhaps most importantly, Lawrence Murray Dixon was one of the first architects to build large-scale hotels in the Art Deco style in Miami Beach, bringing in the jazz age style of machine-age optimism and prosperity. Yet, what makes Miami Beach remarkable is not only the way in which Dixon and his colleagues used Art Deco to meet the local need for lower cost resort architecture, but the way in which they adapted the style to incorporate local motifs and historical styles. The result is the unique architecture of South Beach, as it is now known, the largely restored international vacation hotspot, and the country's first twentieth-century architectural district to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Dixon's archive, one of the era's most complete, is now in the collection of Miami Beach's Bass Museum of Art. Its drawings and marvelous duotone photographs (mostly from New York photographers Gottscho & Schleisner) form the backbone of this book and show these landmark buildings in their original, pristine state. Allan Shulman and Jean François Lejeune were afforded full access to this treasure trove of rare images. But their research and writing is not limited to Art Deco architecture in Miami Beach alone-- Shulman and Lejeune look to the World's Fairs, the skyscrapers of New York, and the skylines of other twentieth-century cities, like Tel Aviv, Rio de Janeiro, and Casablanca. This makes The Making of Miami Beach 1933-1942 the most complete, up-to-date and highly researched history of Art Deco architecture as it was adapted to the utilitarian, yet fantastic, needs of South Miami Beach.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Allan T. Shulman is a practicing architect with design and restoration projects among the historic hotels and commercial buildings of Miami Beach. He is a full-time lecturer at the University of Miami School of Architecture and has written extensively on topics related to the architectural and urban history of South Florida. Jean Fran‡ois Lejeune is a Belgian-born architect-urbanist and author. He is an associate Professor at the University of Miami School of Architecture and editor of the book series The New City. His research and publications focus on twentieth-century urban history.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 232 pages
• Publisher: Rizzoli (March 7, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 084782280X
• ISBN-13: 978-0847822805
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 1.1 x 11.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,096,772 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Something for the architectural historian, January 7, 2005

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Richard Beaubien "co-author of Discovering So... (Massachusetts USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Making of Miami Beach: 1933 1942: The Architecture of Lawrence Murray Dixon (Hardcover)

The amount of material available about the architects of South Beach has been very limited. Though two in particular, Henry Hohauser and L. Murray Dixon, designed approximately 70% of all of the buildings within the Miami Beach Art Deco District we know very little about them.

This book clears the air a bit about Dixon but we are still much in the dark about the details of his life. In fairness we do get some pieces of the puzzle such as how he spent time in New York with Schultze & Weaver and how he trained in the various architectural studios (similar to the ateliers of Paris) in the big city.

Issued in conjunction with an exhibition in 2000 at the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach this book chronicles the architectural works of L. Murray Dixon. It casts a wide net in order to place Dixon's work within the fabric of architectural, urban, and cultural histories. The text by Lejeune and Shulman does a wonderful job of connecting the simultaneous threads of Miami Beach urban growth, the popular culture that drove much of the architecture on Miami Beach, and the influence of the major world architectural theories on the Miami Beach architects. Beautifully illustrated with a plethora of photos, original Dixon plans, and a number of his architectural renderings we get a much clearer picture of Dixon's work and the development of Miami Beach. The photos of the lost Atlantis Hotel are worth the price alone.

Now if someone could only do this for Henry Hohauser.