Miami Attracts Starchitects

"Just when it seemed that the traditional Miami aesthetic had made a national comeback -- with Art Deco, Art Moderne and space-age-style motifs re-entering the vocabulary of so many developers -- a new chapter has opened for this city's architecture.

The Big Architects are in town.

On Lincoln Road alone in Miami Beach, Enrique Norten, Frank Gehry and the team of Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron are all at work on major projects. From Mr. Norten there is a low-slung condominium and retail building, and Mr. Herzog and Mr. de Meuron are designing a distinctive parking garage integrated with retail, office and residential space. Frank Gehry is creating a concert hall and high-tech distance-learning center for the New World Symphony. And Mr. Norten has at least two other projects in Miami, including the so-called Flatiron building.

Downtown, Cesar Pelli's much-awaited Miami Performing Arts Center is scheduled to open late this year, featuring a soaring lobby, a 2,400-seat opera house, a 2,200-seat concert hall and a 200-seat theater linked by a pedestrian bridge over Biscayne Boulevard. In a nod to the past, Mr. Pelli has preserved what is left of the old Sears building, an Art Deco tower with fluted piers, which punctuates his design."