The Night Lights Of South Beach

With all the white leather, pleather and naugahyde Miami has consumed, a good upholsterer could recover the entire main streets, storefronts and historic buildings of the Hamptons combined. Despite this Christo-like endeavor, there would still be plenty of leftover material.

South Beach is awash in white, as evidenced by my recent holiday visit there. From the Delano to the Fontainbleu, and every furniture store in between, “SoBe” reverberates in white. It’s a blank muslin-like canvas that allows art, sculpture and the human creation to invade center attention.

This is a city that celebrates Glamour (with a capital “G”) in both its chicest choices and tawdriest exposés. With white constructing the blank slate, mirror, chrome, steel and Mylar reflect the eager narcissism that holds court on such. All this glamour, narcissism, shimmer and reflection, by the way, adds up to great people-watching, and entertaining design as well.

Decoration and design hold court in this vibrant destination slightly east of Miami. In South Beach, it must be suave, shocking, titillating, courageous or tacky. It must have a definite point of view that grabs your attention instantly. If you waver in your attention, it will slap you in the face.

This is not classic design meant to endure the discerning eyes of generation after generation. This is temporal—for the here and now—and nothing more. As a result, this design attitude is thrilling, sexy and liberating no matter where you are from. All ages, shapes, sizes, preferences, ethnicities and strata seem to relish this voyeuristic experience.

Despite the come-hither daylight dalliances of the warm sun and soft sand, the city comes alive at night. And what selections of nighttime lighting this Salome by the sea offers!

Chandeliers are not simply your mother’s crystal bob hanging above the dining table. One shop sported a light source draped in Medusa-like curls of white snakes. The fixture’s white curls bounced in the wind, appearing to grow and shrink as the light was sensually revealed, peek-a-boo like.

Another chandelier, comprised of cartoon-like cutouts of white metal, seemed to represent whimsical, bubbly splashes of white, frozen in silhouette, while cylindrical glass bulbs surfed between the froth.

A globular take on the Chinese lantern combined the Halloween concept of a glowing white pumpkin with origami, this metal sphere—with cloud-shaped cutouts casting enchanting shadows of white to grey verging on charcoal—was a simple concept but was also pretty. And few modern fixtures actually can be called “pretty.”

The chandelier lampshade continues its evolution. One particularly elegant lampshade chandelier that I saw asked the viewer not to contemplate its white lacquered exterior drum, but to look up its “skirt” to view a white plaster relief representing a lush white garden so fertile that it was growing out of the lampshade. It was a truly unique take on the much overused lampshade concept.

Another chandelier shade took the leaded glass route, delineating strips of opalescent white glass with strands of undulating lead. An elegant string shade derived its interest from its long, boxy scale, lending a moiré effect as passersby glanced quickly. Yet another chandelier lampshade looked more stylish, clad in curved platelets of white metal armor slightly warped allowing light to mysteriously spill out between the chinks in a Darth Vader-esque shield.

Yet another answered the question: What do you get when you wad up a piece of white screen-like mesh, shine a light through it and suspend it by invisible wires? The answer: A floating cloud of ethereal mist, softly glowing above your head.

In several hotels, there are Jetson-era resin polyform spacecraft chandeliers, resembling the futuristic pelvic birth of the zygote. You can also see the Yin egg form, lit from within the Yang center, while prophesying the initiation of new beginnings (definitely Italian).

A new glass has hit the market. The transmirrors—bulbous, hand-blown forms—appear as a solid reflective surface until a light source from within is turned on. The mysterious glow which emanates is entirely bewitching.

Upon viewing one, I asked if it was the old-fashioned two-way mirror. I was severely upbraided with my suggestion and informed that it was called “transmirror.” You learn something new every day.

Deep stairwells present lighting problems. It’s always a question how to light the top of the stairwell as well as the bottom. This challenge was met by those highly elongated light fixtures in Miami Beach.

One was a simple loop of 8-foot-long white fringe, lit from within by a vertical tube of light. Another vertical fixture sprouted from a recessed down light in the ceiling. A hand-blown 8-foot-long droplet suspended like a perfect slow-motion stretch of globular taffy. The bulb emanated a white glow from its nethermost top and glowed a soft lavender along its tubular shaft.

A whimsical take on the crystal chandelier in South Beach was the “half doughnut,” comprised of a thousand white rock crystals suspended by a labyrinth of wires from a steel mirror perforated with LED down lights. The rock crystals were painstakingly assembled and suspended in the three-dimensional shape of a half doughnut. It both stunned you by its elaborate construction and made you laugh on account of its shape—yet somehow it shows remarkably elegant as well.

Additionally, I was impressed by the plethora of ingenious sconces. Cast shadows and patterns from the light source have become as essential to the source’s intrinsic value as the physical design form. The bulb encircled by etched glass was casting dancing hieroglyphics, dictated by the beautiful etched patterns themselves.

One particularly exuberant sconce took inspiration from the ruffled sleeves and train of the flamenco dancers. Tipped in black, the white bouquet of ruffles presented itself as a lighthearted alternative to the traditional sconce.

A light bulb in the shape of double fluorescent circles hung on a square, double-sandwiched mirror, producing a fascinating window into infinity. The fluorescent ring curved ad infinitum simulated the universal conundrum of endlessness. Oh, and it is also one heck of a makeup mirror.

What will they think of next conceptually—a white paper folder sconce fanned out to reveal a zigzag spray of light? Or maybe a half plaster lamp sconce embedded into the wall painted the same color and texture as the wall, appearing as if emerging out of the surface, pulling itself free?

South Beach endorses this kind of thinking, this kind of creativity and problem solving. Unrestrained and unbridled, it can also flaunt its decadence. But as a temporary playground, a respite from the dreary frozen tundra of the north, an elevating breath of fresh humid air and a lift from the restrained northeastern design perspective—South Beach can enlighten, amuse and seduce—especially at night.