Lincoln Road

Lincoln Road is a vibrant pedestrian and shopping destination in Miami Beach, and arguably the most successful and lively street in South Florida. With dining, shopping, public spaces, and beautiful architecture, Lincoln Road is a marvelous urban destination. If you want a true South Florida tropical experience, Lincoln Road in Miami Beach is the place to go.

Morris Lapidus is the architect who back in the early 1960's reimagined Lincoln Road in Miami Beach into one of the first pedestrian malls in America — it was he who proposed closing the street to vehicular traffic. "A car never bought anything," Lapidus said in defense of his idea to introduce a pedestrian mall.

Today, much of the life and charm present on the famous (and extremely successful) pedestrian mall can be attributed to the architectural details and planning changes introduced by the famed Miami Beach architect. Morris Lapidus re-envisioned Lincoln Road into the pedestrian oasis it is today by removing cars from the street and creating a unique and tropical pedestrian destination. Instead of a car choked street, Lincoln Road has a network of fountains, green spaces, and rich foliage oriented at the pedestrian complemented with shading devices and public gathering spaces to stimulate activity and create comfort. This formed a connected and linear park-like pedestrian space along the center of Lincoln Road and two wide sidewalks along the edge for window shopping.

Morris Lapidus created a series of sculptural architectural follies, fountains, and shade structures along the center of a six block stretch of Lincoln Road that are some of the most identifiable elements of the street today. Using concrete forms, the structures employ different structural solutions (cantilevers, barrel, slab, folded plate) to create a procession of gathering spaces along the street that include an outdoor performance space. Complemented by the geometric shapes and symbols emblematic of Morris Lapidus MIMO (Miami Modernist) Architecture, these create a collage of shapes and patterns, that when augmented with the changing light, creates not only a comfortable escape during the hot afternoons, but also a beautiful and playful changing display of light and shadows.

Inspired by the work of the Brazilian modernist landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx, Lapidus took from the vibrant paving patterns of the broad promenades along Ipanema and Copacabana beaches in Rio De Janeiro. He envisioned black and white striped pavement stretching the entire width of the right of way from building face to building face, but budgetary constraints limited him to keeping the original 1920's sidewalk and filling in the asphalt roadway.

Although the ambient and stores have changed with time, one can today still visit the same Lincoln Road created by Morris Lapidus — much of the work performed by him has been preserved and restored. Additions have been done as well. In 1999, Carlos Zapata with Benjamin Wood designed a new folly in the deconstructivist style along the intersection of Lincoln Road and Washington Avenue — along the east edge of the pedestrian mall to complement the work of Morris Lapidus. The new structure includes fountains and foliage as well.

Just recently (2009), work began on another extension along the west side of the boulevard to complement a new Herzog & De Meuron building. The work, performed by local landscape architecture firm Raymond Jungles, extends the playful and tropical nature of Lincoln Road further west to Alton Road. Abstract shapes, benches, fountains, and even the striped paving play to the historical and stylistic nature of the Morris Lapidus boulevard.