Join Docomomo US in Miami and Coral Gables, Florida, from May 29 to June 1, 2024, and experience one of the country’s richest collections of mid-century and postmodern architecture. Entitled “Streams of Modernity: Postwar to Postmodern,” the 2024 National Symposium is a collaboration of Docomomo US and the Docomomo US/Florida chapter. Researchers, practitioners, and enthusiasts involved in the process of preservation, conservation, renovation or transformation of buildings, sites and neighborhoods of the Modern Movement are invited to submit abstracts of papers or full sessions.

Miami is a city whose location, diversity and vibrant growth have made it an ideal destination for international travel, business, culture, and leisure. Incorporated in 1896—though Native Americans inhabited the region for millennia—the city and its greater region are a remarkable landscape described by native Amerindians as a slowly flowing “river of grass,” with a thin strip of buildable land stretching along its coastline. The region became an escape for post-WWII middle America, shaped largely by the desire for leisure and entertainment. Over the past decades, Miami has become a laboratory to explore new urban patterns, building types, evolving aesthetics, and emerging environmental consciousness.

The symposium seeks to promote a broader understanding of the accomplishments of postwar to Postmodern architecture and culture in regionally specific contexts such as South Florida, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Themes to be explored include: Tropical Brutalism, Postwar campus planning in the (sub)tropics, LGBTQ+Modernism, Postwar tourism, urban renewal and Interstate infrastructure, Modern architecture and popular culture in south Florida, polychrome Modern & the integration of the arts, and more.

Read more about the symposium, including the thematic goals, and find abstract submission guidelines and instructions on the Docomomo US Symposium webpage.

Abstracts are due by Thursday January 11, 2024 at 11:59 pm. Reach out to symposium@docomomo-us.org with any questions.