Henry Hohauser
The Arc
Henry Hohauser was a New York-trained architect who moved to Miami Beach in the early 1930s, just as the Depression-era building wave was getting underway, and became its single most prolific hand. While the boom developers had built in Mediterranean Revival, Hohauser and his contemporaries built the new thing — Art Deco and its sleek Streamline Moderne variant: rounded corners, vertical fins, "eyebrow" sunshades, terrazzo, glass block, and neon, all on the tight budgets a Depression resort demanded.
He designed dozens of the small hotels and apartment buildings that define the South Beach district — the Park Central, the Colony (with its famous neon sign), the Essex House, and many more — working alongside contemporaries like L. Murray Dixon and Albert Anis. These were never meant as monuments; they were inexpensive, cheerful, of-the-moment buildings for middle-class tourists. That modesty is exactly why so many survived to be rediscovered, protected, and globally celebrated half a century later.
Why They Matter
Hohauser, more than any single architect, gave South Beach its physical identity — the look the entire world now reads as "Miami." The Art Deco district he did so much to build is the largest concentration of 1930s Deco anywhere, the backdrop of the 1990s renaissance, and the foundation of the city's global image. He designed cheap hotels in a depression and ended up designing Miami's brand.
His career is also a case study in the recurring Miami pattern of dismissed-then-treasured: the Deco hotels were considered disposable for decades before becoming protected landmarks. Hohauser's buildings outlasted the era's low opinion of them, and now anchor a historic district.
Where You See Them Today
The South Beach Art Deco Historic District along and around Ocean Drive is full of Hohauser's work — the Park Central, the Colony, and many of the pastel hotels tourists photograph daily. His buildings are the most-seen, least-credited architecture in Florida. The Miami Beach streetscape that defines the city's image is, building by building, substantially his.
Further Reading
- Barbara Baer Capitman, Deco Delights
- Histories of the Miami Design Preservation League and the Art Deco district
- Howard Kleinberg, Miami Beach: A History
Neighborhoods: Miami Beach Eras: Recovery & Art Deco Related people: L. Murray Dixon · Albert Anis · Morris Lapidus