Miami

MAM Reinvented

Miami Art Museum unveils new designs

By Cynthia Archbold

The new Miami Art Museum, scheduled to open in 2011, will float above Biscayne Bay like a wide-open tropical veranda, full of sunlight, breezes and vine-covered pillars, according to models and drawings unveiled by architects from the international firm Herzog & de Meuron on Friday.

The public can preview the look of the new MAM in a new exhibit at the museum’s current downtown Miami location at 101 W. Flagler St.

The new MAM will sit low on the horizon on the edge of the bay, its glass walls allowing spectators to see through the building to the dramatic waterfront beyond.

The exhibition shows a structure that is majestic, yet designed to seem as light as a skiff or a seagull. It was inspired by the open structures of Miami’s cherished Stiltsville, which sits beyond the shores of Key Biscayne, said architect Christine Binswanger.

“It’s an open plaza, a veranda … a place where it’s nice to be and where it’s nice to look out,” she said, showing models of the enormous space and pointing out that almost half of the new museum is outside beyond the walls, under a huge canopy.

“We hope it becomes a meeting place where people get together with friends,” said Terrence Riley, MAM’s Director.

The museum’s three stories will rise only 77 feet above the bay. The galleries, auditorium, library, classrooms and offices will float above the ground-floor plaza, allowing views of Government Cut and giving museum-goers spectacular vistas of art against the backdrop of Miami’s most visual natural assets.

Riley said the museum chose Herzog & de Meuron because the firm is known for designing one-of-a-kind museums tailored to their local geographical environments and cultures. “They don’t have a signature style like Frank Gehry,” he said. “The fact that they’re looking at Stiltsville, boardwalks and banyan trees means they are designing with specific Florida references.”

The banyan tree inspired the clusters of narrow columns, decorated with cascading vines, that will support the canopy and make the new museum more hurricane-resistant. The designers used the same logic in perforating the canopy — to dissipate the force of hurricane winds and illuminate the veranda with patches of light.

The vibrant scenery and the inviting, breezy structure will be a stark contrast to MAM’s present gallery across the street from Miami-Dade’s County Hall and sharing the same complex as Miami-Dade’s main library and the Historical Museum of Southern Florida. On Friday, the tile plaza heated up to a stifling level by 10 a.m. Nearby, sweating school children and their teachers waited to go inside the windowless, fortress-like building for a special tour.

At Herzog & de Meuron’s future MAM, kids and other museum patrons will wait in a shady, lush tropical oasis cooled by gentle gusts off Biscayne Bay.

Once inside, students will be able to study art in classrooms featuring panoramic views of the water and gardens. The new MAM will be able to accommodate 30,000 students a year, five times as many as the museum now serves, with classrooms designed just for teaching and an ambitious program that will use art to enhance lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic.

It will also encompass 120,000 square feet, with 32 square feet of exhibition space — three times the current exhibition space — to display the museum’s collection of 20th-century and contemporary artwork. There also will be a parking garage with 250 spaces.

The movement to transform Bicentennial Park — 29 acres of waterfront green space just north of Bayside in Miami — into Museum Park gained momentum in 2004 when county voters approved $2.9 billion in general obligation bonds. The bonds included a $250 million taxpayer-funded revenue stream to construct a new Miami Art Museum and a new Miami Science Museum at Bicentennial Park.

But the idea to build museums in the park is not without its detractors. Steve Hagen, a Miami parks advocate, said the city should have invested the time to transform the open space into a proper park instead of handing it over to museums. “Our contention is no one goes to Bicentennial Park because it was never turned into a park,” said Hagen, who is also a member of Miami Neighborhoods United, an organization representing 14 Miami neighborhood associations. “It is a big open space,” he said. “What we are fighting for is a grand landscaped venue [with shade] and that in itself will be enough to bring people to the park.”

As for MAM’s unveiled design, Hagen admitted that he “personally kind of likes the look of the building,” but noted that since MAM and the Miami Science Museum are taking a third of the park, it will become mere green space surrounding the museums.

Despite skeptics who doubted that the museum could raise the money needed for construction, Riley said the museum is way ahead of its fundraising schedule, having already acquired $100 million in private donations to match the $100 million in bond funding approved by Miami-Dade voters. The museum is now raising an additional $20 million to begin its endowment, Riley said.

Meanwhile, Hagen pointed out that Miami doesn’t even have the money to implement plans for Museum Park, which is estimated to cost between $50 and $168 million. At one point, Miami officials thought they could use $20 million from the city’s Homeland Defense/Neighborhood Improvement bonds, Hagen said. “Then they [the city] found out the seawall needed to be fixed so they spent $10 million repairing the seawall.

“They don’t have a mission statement; they have not set up a budget” to build a park, he said. “The whole process seems to be upside down.”

— Erik Bojnansky contributed to this story.

Comments? E-mail letters@miamisunpost.com.

Intermission

Historic board delays approval of Lyric Theater expansion

By Erik Bojnansky

A local Overtown group will have to wait a little longer before it can move forward with plans to expand a 94-year-old landmark theater.

The Miami Historic and Environmental Preservation Board delayed the Black Archives’ application to build a four-story addition behind the Lyric Theater at 819 N.W. Second Avenue until Jan. 4.

Black Archive members want to expand the 6,000-square-foot Lyric Theater by another 9,000 square feet, but because the venue was designated historic in 1989, any substantial additions must be approved by the board.

But Kathleen Slesnick Kauffman, the city’s historic preservation officer, told board members Tuesday that the addition’s proposed design is not compatible with the surrounding area because it would tower above the old two-story building and “overwhelm the site.”

Although the Planning Department’s historic preservation staff usually meets with applicants to work out project details, Kauffman said they haven’t yet “had opportunity” to do so for the theater.

Dorothy Jenkins Fields, the founder, archivist and historian of the Black Archives, said time was of the essence. If construction does not begin by March, she said, the Black Archives could lose the $10 million grant it received from Miami-Dade County.

“We are on this fast track with the general obligation bond,” she said.

Fields also said the addition was a matter of “form over function” that will enable the theater to host “modern performances.”

Plus, she said, it wasn’t intended to imitate the original Lyric Theater’s design. “New construction is not supposed to mimic historic property,” she said.

Built in 1913, the Lyric Theater hosted such performers as Count Basie, Sam Cooke, B.B. King and Aretha Franklin before closing in the 1960s. The Black Archives purchased the theater in 1988, received a historical designation in 1989 and reopened the theater in 2000 after a series of renovations. Fields even introduced herself to the board as “the person responsible for saving the historic theater.”

Although Kauffman pushed for a continuance, she expressed her admiration for the Black Archives’ efforts to make the Lyric Theater live again. “It is one of our most treasured historic sites and I so love you all for what you are doing there; it’s great.”

Comments? E-mail erik@miamisunpost.com.

Miami Beach

Garage Sale?

City commissioner says parking facility contracts should be bid out

By Ben Torter

Newly elected Miami Beach Commissioner Jonah Wolfson wants his commission colleagues to take a close look at who is running city-owned parking garages and lots, and to invite other companies to offer a better deal.

Standard Parking, Inc. currently maintains the city’s public parking garages and lots. The Chicago-based company supplies cashiers, attendants and supervisors to run the city’s six public parking garages and a few city-owned lots. The initial term of Standard’s approximately $3 million-per-year contract expires Jan. 3.

Wolfson is sponsoring a resolution to not automatically renew Standard’s contract, but instead to invite other companies to submit bids. The Miami Beach City Commission will discuss the item Dec. 12.

Wolfson cited the need for the city to reduce costs, especially in light of likely budget mandates from Tallahassee, and briefly touched on concerns about Standard’s local management.

“There has been a cloud of ethics issues surrounding Standard Parking’s local hierarchy,” Wolfson said, but would not name names.

However, in recent months, Standard Parking’s Miami Manager Frank Pintado’s alleged election campaign practices have been called into question.

The Miami-Dade County Commission on Ethics and Public Trust is investigating an e-mail that appeared to have originated from Pintado’s personal e-mail address and purported to show the results of a city election poll that had three Miami Beach commission candidates he supported — Elsa Urquiza, Luis Salom and Michael Gongora — ahead in their races. All three lost. Pintado said he had received the e-mail and forwarded it to a friend.

Also sent to the ethics commission was the now-infamous Teletubby flier that attacked Group 6 candidates Frank Kruszewski, Linda Grosz and Urquiza with what many found to be homophobic, sexist and racist references using animated children’s characters. At the time, many inside City Hall, as well as political consultants and candidates, told the SunPost they believed Pintado was behind the flier, citing a similar attack against a South Miami commissioner Dan McCrea in his 2004 re-election effort. Pintado was mentioned in sworn depositions as being behind those mailers. He allegedly resented McCrea for not voting to award him a failed parking contract in South Miami. Pintado denied involvement. That case was closed after a key witness died of natural causes before he could testify.

Standard Parking has run the city of Miami Beach’s garages and various lots — such as the one across from the Convention Center and another behind the New World Symphony — since 1999. Its contract was renewed in 2004, despite a bid protest submitted by attorney Kent Harrison Robbins, on behalf of Quik Park of Florida, Inc., alleging that Pintado had violated the city’s vendor ordinance by helping with the campaigns of former Commissioners Matti Herrera Bower, Simon Cruz and Luis Garcia. Quik Park owner Hank Sopher, who ran against Cruz for commissioner in 2003, felt he lost the parking contract because of political favoritism. He contributed at least $3,500 to Bower’s recent successful mayoral run against Cruz.

Besides financial support, Sopher’s bid protest alleged that as a “political operative,” Pintado “organized workers” during elections.

“He went to low-cost housing facilities and solicited votes,” the complaint stated. “He arranged for transportation to bring voters to the polls and used Standard employees as the drivers. He also served as a ‘bagman’ for the commissioners’ re-election campaign and deviously tried to set up his competition for disqualification by sending e-mails to his competing parking garage operators urging them to contribute to Simon Cruz in his re-election effort.”

After a Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics investigation could not find sufficient evidence substantiating Sopher’s complaint, the City Attorney’s Office opined that Miami Beach’s vendor ordinance was not broken.

 “I alleged Pintado was a vendor; the city said he wasn’t a vendor,” Robbins said. “They said he’s just a consultant of a vendor.”

On Tuesday, Pintado claimed not to know about the proposed resolution.

“If they want to put out [a request for proposals], that’s fine — we’ll compete just like everyone else,” Pintado said. “Hopefully we’ll just be judged on our merits.”

The resolution will likely be a litmus test as to how the commission — with three newly elected officials, and former Commissioner Bower now sitting in the mayor’s chair — will vote.

Commissioners Saul Gross, Deede Weithorn, Richard Steinberg and Vice Mayor Jerry Libbin did not answer requests for comment.

Commissioner Ed Tobin was still researching the item Tuesday, but said he preferred to bid out the contracts.

“Anytime the city can go out and get competitive bids for goods and services, we owe that to our constituents,” Tobin said.

Mayor Bower chose not to take a public stance on the item before the Dec. 12 meeting.

“It’s an unfortunate thing to start with controversy,” Bower said. “I’ll let the commission discuss it and come to a consensus.”

If the commission passes the resolution, Standard Parking would be put on a month-to-month contract until it either wins the bid, or a replacement is hired.

Comments? E-mail ben@miamisunpost.com.

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Comments? Email letters@miamisunpost.com.

 

The Art Basel Issue Table of Contents   The Art Basel Effect: Economic Opportunities Abound  Art in Fashion: Hip Event Highlights   In the Flesh: Spencer Tunick   The New Art Miami: Joining the Basel Fray   Art Positions: World Collude NADA: No Commercialism Here Scope Miami: Celebrating Independent Artists   Photo Miami and AIPAD: Imagery Unleashed   The Last Goodbye: Basel Director Sam Keller Bids Farewell   Design Miami: Urban Possibilities Casa Décor: From Argentina, With Style Thank You Ma’am: Lichtenstein Pop Art at Fairchild Miami Contemporary Artists: The In-Between Zone Art Appétit: Food and Art Fusion   Friends With You: A Special Blend of Magic The Urban Art Experience: A Basel Survival Guide International Exhibitions: Russians, Chinese and Italians, Oh My Calendar: Art Basel and Everything Else Theater: The Steadfast Playground Theatre Film Review: The Golden Compass Bound: Havana Noir Nightlife: The Bar’s 61st anniversary bash Chow: Eating at Art Basel Bites: Art in Restaurants Restaurant Listings Special Printable Art Basel Map