Cast Masters

OMA brings concrete, culture and car parking to Miami’s new Faena District.

- Marisa Bartolucci

Not long ago, Mid-Beach was a bland, eight block stretch of Miami Beach, so faded as an urbanscape that few noticed the gorgeous, unpopulated stretch of sand beckoning beyond the dull buildings along its main drag, Collins Avenue. Then, late last year, with the debuts of the flamboyantly glamorous Faena Hotel (W*202), in a restored 1940's resort tower, and Faena House, a billowy, 18-storey condo high-rise designed by Foster + Partners, Mid-Beach was suddenly on every globetrotter’s radar.

When the Faena company’s new three building complex with cultural, retail and parking components, designed by OMA, opens on 27 November across the street, the $1.2bn dollar reinvention of the neighbourhood will be considered complete (one more element, Faena Mar, a residential tower by Brandon Haw, will be added in 2017).

Alan Faena, the Argentinean who envisioned the project and invested ‘his heart and all his strength’, predicts it will engender ‘a new renaissance’ in Miami Beach and beyond, as well as providing a vibrant new venue for interaction between North and South America.