brutalism – The BIG BUBBLE Miami

The Office in the Grove Will Be Considered for Miami Historic Designation on September 5th

“Docomomo US / Florida, the local chapter of Docomomo International, a non-profit organization dedicated to the documentation and conservation of buildings, sites and neighborhoods of the modern movement for nearly 25 years, applied May 5 to the City of Miami Historic and Environmental Preservation Board requesting them to designate Office in the Grove, Coconut Grove, a historic, architectural resource.”

A Photographic Tour of the Office in the Grove’s Art-Filled Lobby Before It Was Destroyed

This is the richly decorated, highly sculptural lobby of The Office in the Grove, designed by architect Kenneth Treister in 1970. The building was modernist, but the lobby interior was richly covered in plaster and concrete bas reliefs, copper sculptures and light fixtures, and intricately carved wood elevator panels, depicting many of the natural wonders of the Office in the Grove’s surrounding neighborhood, a place where peacocks walk the streets (Some consider them a public nuisance sadly) and palm trees galore make the name ‘Coconut Grove’ literally true.

Modernist Office Building in Coconut Grove by Seminal Miami Architect Kenneth Treister Faces Demolition

A group of architects and preservationists interested in preserving modernist architecture is fighting to save the Office in the Grove, an office building designed by seminal Miami architect Kenneth Treister in 1970, from demolition. Treister artfully tempered the building’s precast concrete brutalist facade with creative architectural details of local flora and fauna, highlighting the surrounding Coconut Grove neighborhood.