Doors Open: 5:30pm
Lecture Begins: 6:15pm
Q & A: 7:15pm
Cocktail Reception: 7:30pm – 8:30pm
The lecture is about the MYTH of Coral Gables, as created by Denman and George Fink (uncle and cousin of George Merrick).
The Mediterranean Revival was the creation in Florida of a mythical past that came from the imagination of a number of architects. These individuals, starting with Addison Mizner, manufactured a non-existent past out of a recreation of European models freely translated and re-interpreted. It was a continuation of a movement that had originally started in California evolving through the Mission Style and gradually evolving into a style that created a history and a tradition that is Mediterranean Revival. These architects (Willis Polk, AC Schweinfurth, and in particular Bertram Goodhue) took from Europe and from Latin American Baroque to create a tradition separated by hundreds of years from the actual Spanish Conquest.
The presentation will focus on the myths that were created through drawings by these architects, and in particular by the painter Denman Fink in Coral Gables.
Gelabert Navia will also feature his sketches of Coral Gables and his own “Grand Tour” of Italy and New Mexico.
by Bertram Goodhue, for the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego
by Denman Fink for the Venetian Pool in Coral Gables
Jose Gelabert-Navia
Jose A. Gelabert-Navia is a Professor and former Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Miami. A graduate of Cornell University, Jose has been part of the Faculty since 1981. His primary teaching focus has been in the areas of Architectural Design and History of Colonialism and Globalization in Architecture. He was the founder of the School’s Rome Program and as part of it, he teaches a course in Italian Culture every Spring. Prof. Gelabert-Navia has been the author of numerous articles and has also been a practicing architect, directing the Miami office of Perkins + Will. He has lectured in Europe and Latin America, most recently on the Sustainable Hospital in Brasilia and in Santiago, Chile this year.
Oct 26, 2022 – Lecture: A Manual of Mediterranean Architecture for Coral Gables by Teófilo Victoria
Feb 8, 2023 – A Conversation: Traditional Architecture by Jose Gelabert Navia
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