Miami Beach boasts the world’s greatest concentration of art deco buildings, which reflect a distinct era in American history—along with the can-do attitude that has defined the nation. From the Great Depression years through the 1940s, architects in the Miami area designed dominantly within the umbrella of styles now known as art deco, and some nine hundred structures in this genre remain. They rose amid economic hard times and evoked technological modernity, resilience, and optimism.