MIAMI BEACH, FL - DECEMBER 03: Patrons attend 2010 Art Basel during a celebration honoring Isabella Rossellini and film "Seduce Me" at the Wolfsonianon December 3, 2010 in Miami Beach, Florida. (Photo by Anthony Djuren/Getty Images)

Getty Images

Wolfsonian-FIU

Top choice in South Beach


Visit this excellent design museum early in your stay to put the aesthetics of Miami Beach into context. It’s one thing to see how wealth, leisure and the pursuit of beauty manifest, but it’s another to understand the roots and shadings of local artistic movements. By chronicling the interior evolution of everyday life, the Wolfsonian reveals how these trends manifested architecturally in SoBe’s exterior deco.

Take a look at the Wolfsonian’s own noteworthy architectural features with its Gothic-futurist angles and lion-head-studded grand elevator.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby South Beach attractions

1. Congress Hotel

0.12 MILES

Close to 11th St, the Congress Hotel is a deco classic, showing perfect symmetry in its three-story facade, with window-shading eyebrows and a long…

2. Art Deco Museum

0.15 MILES

This small museum is one of the best places in town for an enlightening overview of the art deco district. Through videos, photography, models and other…

3. World Erotic Art Museum

0.17 MILES

The World Erotic Art Museum celebrates its staggering but artful erotica collection, including pieces by Rembrandt and Picasso. Back in 2005, 70-year-old…

4. Promenade

0.21 MILES

This beach promenade, a wavy ribbon sandwiched between the beach and Ocean Dr, extends from 5th St to 15th St. A popular location for photo shoots,…

5. Art Deco Historic District

0.22 MILES

The world-famous art-deco district of Miami Beach is pure exuberance: an architecture of bold lines, whimsical tropical motifs and a color palette that…

6. Post Office

0.24 MILES

Make it a point to mail a postcard from this 1937 deco gem of a post office, the very first South Beach renovation project tackled by preservationists in…

7. Colony Hotel

0.25 MILES

The Colony is the oldest deco hotel in Miami Beach. It was the first hotel in Miami, and perhaps America, to incorporate its sign (a zigzaggy neon wonder)…

8. Carlyle

0.25 MILES

The Carlyle comes with futuristic styling, triple parapets, a Jetsons vibe and some cinematic cachet: The Birdcage was filmed here.