The Arango Design Store: Furnishing Modernism in Miami

The story of the Arango Design store is the story of Miami as an open frontier and an international crossroad for modernist design during the mid-twentieth century. Jorge Arango, a Colombian architect who espoused modernist idealism, and Judith Wolpert, a native Miamian and pragmatist, opened an innovative store dedicated to goods of contemporary design in 1959. Miami at the time was regarded among the design cognoscenti more as the capital of kitsch , than a beacon of progressive design. But to a relatively small and enlightened group, the shop represented a moment of arrival. The commitment of the Arangos to promote modern design in Miami can be traced to their experience in Jorge Arango’s homeland of Colombia, where the two first met in the early 1950s. Once in Miami, the Arangos continued to surround themselves with primary players of the modern design movement. The Arangos themselves represented a tentative merger of passionate idealism with calculated pragmatism. During the 1940s and 1950s an Anglo-American perspective dominated the cultural framework of the region, its architecture and urban form. It was during this formative period that the international perspective introduced through the Arango store played a significant role in bringing international design to Miami, and Miami into the consciousness of the players of that movement. The store had become a tool to promote the expansion of modernism in Miami. They were civic activists, frequently publishing, sponsoring lectures and exhibits as a means to educate. For Arango, and Miami, the transformative prospect of modernism was a project yet to be completed.

Volume Editors
David Covo & Gabriel Mérigo Basurto

ISBN
0-935502-57-2