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'I . I ~"!~")W{.f,$,?:1<~;:;~ <l -~.,..,.,. t~;;:~,,~Zj,;;~~;1i.: , I~.:<;i"'/.'......l , I T1IROVGHYUTTHE LATE 1980'S AND EARI.Y 90'S, I WORKED AS I a nigh!lif1 colum nist for the alternative newspaper Mill/IIi I New Times and kept a small o/Jice on Lincoln Road, the pedestria~ mall that bisects the northern stretches of South Beachhn the 60'5. the vibe of Lincoln Road-designed by the late Mtrrit Lapidus of Fontainebleau and Eden Roc fame- I ' ~ was Mrd Men South, but the glamour days were long gone by the 80's: rJtlrees with radioactive tans shuffled past bedrag- gled d~ag ~ueens and downtrodden shops. Bur there were I interlJdcs'ofgrace: I'd start the day watching the rehearsals of the ~Iiatli City Ballet, in :111 old windowed scorefront (their , . I I I d' V" , S ,) I h onglOa stu 105 arc now a Ictorla secret store). n t e I 'I I evenings'Ihc New World Symphony (NWS). conducted by Michatl Tjlson Thol11as, would broadcast its concerts live on rhe str~et fver a terminally low-tech sound system, I Thirty.years later. Lincoln Road has emerged at the fore- front of Miami's cultural revolution, thanks to Frank Gehry's just-opened New World Center performing arts venue. An I ambitious stab at the civic transcendence of blockbuster I I I I II :1 'I ~v- _ .~.A ).M I I r".~:.~ ~. ....'fo!~. \l4 .~ ~,~.;-~- .~~'';:: ~~.~-~-=: ~; :~, ~...-~-... ,-. ,.-;, ~-;,..., ;rJt"" - 4. ,?~_e ,~;.: _ .'... :-- . ;;~?~~ ...;.-~ ~.. ;: -,:~ :~ I I 1101 MARCH 2011 TR.WELANOI.EISURE.CO~l architecture, the building is a testament to the city's ability to reinvent itself after years of shaky real estare devclop- ments, The project is relatively modest in comparison (0 Cehry;s other work-his trademark geological formations arc contained within a partly-glass-walled rcctan1,'lIlar bo~. r n all respects, the Cehry campus is intended to be used as an everyday social arena, not simply gaped at. Visitors to the adjacent 21/1-acre park, designed by the renowned Dutch firm West 8, Can watch rehearsals and symphony patrons through a six-story glass curtain wall, as well as concert broadcasts and video-art murals on a 7.000-square-foot pro- jection wall. As Gehry explains, "The building is meant to be a seduction, a way to lure people in by blurring the dis- tinction between the private and public realms: In the same manner that the fight to preserve South Beach's Art Deco district 40 years ago jump-started the first resurrcction of l\liami, the campus-and. of course, such events as Art Basel Miami !leach-is helping the city establish itself as a major destination on the global cultural