Morris Lapidus (November 25, 1902 – January 18, 2001) was the architect of curvy, flamboyant Neo-baroque moderne hotels that defined the 1950s 'Miami
Beach' resort hotel style.
Born in Odessa, Russian Empire, his family Orthodox
Jews, fled Russian pogroms to New York when he was an infant. As a young man, Lapidus toyed with
theatrical set design and studied architecture at Columbia University. Lapidus
worked for the prominent Beaux Arts firm of Warren and
Wetmore. He worked for 20 years as a retail designer before moving to Miami Beach in the 1940s and designing his first
buildings.
After a career in innovative retail interior design, his first large commission was the Miami Beach Sans Souci Hotel, followed closely by the Nautilus, the Di Lido, the Biltmore Terrace,
and the Algiers, all along Collins Avenue, and amounting to the single-handed redesign of an entire district. The hotels were an
immediate popular success. Then in 1952 he landed the job of the largest luxury hotel in Miami Beach, the property he is most
associated with, the Fontainebleau Hotel, which was followed the next year by the
equally successful Eden Roc and the Americana (now the Sheraton Bal Harbour) in 1956.
The Lapidus style is idiosyncratic and immediately recognizable in photographs, derived as it was from the attention-getting
techniques of commercial store design: sweeping curves, theatrically backlit floating ceilings, 'beanpoles', and the ameboid
shapes that he called 'woggles', 'cheeseholes', and painter's palette shapes. His many smaller projects give Miami Beach's
Collins Avenue its style, anticipating post-modernism. Beyond visual style, there is some
degree of functionalism at work. His curving walls caught the prevailing ocean breezes in
the era before central air-conditioning, and the sequence of his interior spaces were the result of careful attention to user
experience.
The Fountainbleau was built, significantly for the future, on the site of the Harvey
Firestone estate and defining the new Gold Coast of Miami Beach. The hotel provided locations for the 1960 Jerry Lewis
film The Bellboy, a success for both Lewis and Lapidus, and the James Bond thriller Goldfinger (1964). Its most
famous feature is the 'Staircase to Nowhere' that merely led to a coat check, but offered the opportunity to make a glittering
descent into the lobby. This was followed in 1954 by the equally successful Eden Roc
and the Americana (now the Sheraton Bal Harbour) in 1956.
- "My whole success is I've always been designing for people, first because I wanted to sell them merchandise. Then when I got
into hotels, I had to rethink, what am I selling now? You're selling a good time."
His son, architect Alan Lapidus, who worked with his father for 18 years, said, "His theory was if you create the stage
setting and it's grand, everyone who enters will play their part."
Lapidus' wife of 63 years, Beatrice, died in 1992. He died nine years later, at the age of 98 in Miami Beach, Florida.
Critical Reception
Lapidus designed 1,200 buildings, including 250 hotels worldwide. The architectural establishment, wedded to its doctrinaire
expressions of International Modernism, tried to ignore his work, then characterized it as
gaudy kitsch. This abusive critical reception culminated in a 1963 American
Institute of Architects (AIA) meeting held at the Americana, where a variety of well-known architects insulted Lapidus to
his face, in one of his own hotels.
A 1970 Architectural League exhibit in New York began the serious
appraisal of his work. Lapidus tried to ignore the critical panning, but it had an effect on his career and reputation. He burned
50 years' worth of his drawings when he retired in 1984 and remained personally bitter about some aspects of his career. But he
was rediscovered in the post-modernist era: his autobiography Too Much is Never
Enough, 1996, takes a shot at modernist guru Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's
dictum 'Less is more.' According to his German biographer Martina Duttmann, he has always been more highly regarded in Europe
than in the U.S., where the comparable jet-set futurism is designated "Googie".
Morris Lapidus was a great grandfather and a great great grandfather. His only grandson Adam Lapidus is my father so i am his
great grandson. Whoever wrote this story did a good job on he facts and thank you for representing him so well. -his grandson
Eli
Projects
List adapted from Works in Lapidus autobiography.
- Martin's Department Store, Brooklyn, 1944
- Fontainebleau Hotel, Miami, 1954
- Eden Roc Hotel, Miami, 1955
- Shelbourne Hotel, Miami Beach, 1957
- Golden Triangle Motor Hotel, Norfolk, 1959-60
- Lincoln Road, Miami, 1960
- Sheraton Motor Inn, New York, 1960
- Richmond Motel, Virginia, 1961
- 1800 G Street NW, Washington, D.C., 1962
- 1100 L Street NW, Washington, D.C., 1967
- 1425 K Street NW, Washington, D.C., 1970 since remodeled
- Portman Square Hotel, London, 1967
- TSS Mardi Gras, 1975
- TSS Carnival, 1975
- Carnival Cruise Lines Terminal Building, Dodge Island, Florida, 1975
- International Inn, Washington, D.C., 1975
- International Inn, now Washington Plaza Hotel, Washington, D.C., 1962
- Capitol Skyline Hotel, currently Best Western, Washington, D.C., 1962
- Lausanne Apartments, Naples, Florida, 1978
External links
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