Richard Meier on Miami Beach

Just as every city across the globe seems destined to have a Starbucks and a Gap, so it seems every city with global ambitions must eventually get its titanium-clad Frank Gehry civic structure, and its white glassy Richard Meier edifice.  Now Miami is about to score its very own Meier tower--an ocean-front condominium called Beach House.  Cars will turn off of Collins Avenue into a driveway flanked by tall hedges and sweep into a porte cochere drop off area leading to a three-story lobby.  A glass wind screen will wrap a roof-top deck and pool.  In this case, Meier has brought many of the elements he employed in his Charles Street tower in the West Village--the glass balconies, the white metal panels, the unending floor-to-ceiling windows.  To us, this dedication to such a narrow set of materials and extremely limited palette seems a bit slavish.  But, alas, it was E.B. White who advised elegant variation and not Le Corbusier.  The shape of the lot and the local zoning have forced a thick, squat tower rather than the tall skinny form devotees of modern glass are usually accustomed to.  South Florida sunlight can be awfully harsh.  Our advice: make sure the glass is UV protected so your Warhol silkscreens don't fade. 

• Beach House (beachhousemiami.com)
• More on Richard Meier from Triple Mint