Tours of Miami's Art Deco Historic District leave from the Art Deco Gift Shop and introduce a fantasy landscape of tropical blues and pinks, studded with neon-covered landmark hotels. Highlights include the chic Delano and glistening white Tides hotels.
The Art Deco architectural style was a popular one in the US during the 1930s. Coinciding with America's rise as a premier Western industrial nation, the whole aesthetic of Art Deco - an evolution of the previous international art and architectural phenomenon that was Art Nouveau - is based on progress and industry.
For example, the "skyscraper" shape used in the style symbolises a 20th-century view of modernity. Sunbursts and fountains are meant to be indicative of a new modern age, and the representation of the Art Deco Woman alludes to women's newly won social and political freedoms.