Deborah Desilets - Morris Lapidus: An Architecture of Joy - Gables

Start: Oct 25 2010 8:00 pm

Adored for their exuberant and original architecture, more than fifty years of Morris Lapidus’s designs are celebrated in this first-ever monograph Morris Lapidus: An Architecture of Joy (Rizzoli, $65) by Deborah Desilets. Known for inventing the postwar resort hotel with the Fontainebleau and the Eden Roc in Miami Beach, Morris Lapidus (1902–2001) is revered for his joyful interpretation of modernist tenets through an American vernacular of spectacle and whimsy. Lapidus enthusiastically embraced modernism’s formal freedom and sensuality while rejecting its more rigid principles, producing a unique style that seamlessly blends baroque fantasia with modernism’s clean lines and flowing spaces. His exuberant curving walls, zigzagging facades, and deft manipulation of space created dramatic forms that transform the moods of their occupants. From seductive modern shops and private residences, this iconoclast proves that "too much is never enough." 8pm