The Atlantis Condominium

What It Is

The Atlantis is a residential tower on Brickell Avenue, completed in 1982 and designed by the local firm Arquitectonica. Its signature is a five-story square void cut clean through the building's upper portion, a sky court holding a red spiral stair, a palm tree, and a small whirlpool, all visible against the open air. The grid of the facade and a stair-step balcony detail at one corner complete a composition that looked like nothing else on the skyline when it opened. It made Arquitectonica's reputation almost overnight.

Why It Matters

The Atlantis appeared in the opening title sequence of Miami Vice, and that exposure turned a single building into a global symbol of the city. It belongs to the Vice era, when a place still shadowed by the cocaine trade rebranded itself as glamorous, pastel, and modern, an image Miami would monetize for decades. The building also marks the early stirring of Brickell as a vertical residential district rather than a low-rise mansion row, foreshadowing the dense financial corridor it would become. It proved a young Miami firm could set the global imagination of the city.

Neighborhoods: Brickell Eras: The Vice / Reinvention Era Related people: Arquitectonica