The Fontainebleau: A Marriage of Love for ART Basel by Deborah DeSilets

By Deborah DeSilets

In Tiffany’s Tik Tok video The Fontainebleau shines like a gem as @Beyonce and #JAYZ light up the exterior while the performance by the South Florida Symphony Orchestra delivers a sweet rendition of “Moon River.” The Fontainebleau’s façade was married at once with the image of spouses, Beyonce and JayZ. Both speckled with jewels and homages to Basquiat where fashion, art and music merged to make proof again that architecture can be that which lifts the soul.

Morris Lapidus designed the first sketch of this project on the “F” Train on his way into the City from Flatbush. By 1954 Lapidus had completed five hotels on Miami Beach as a Hotel Doctor: The Sans Souci, The Biltmore Terrace, The Nautilus, The Algiers, The DiLido. During this Art Basel the Miami Design Preservation League has been hosting a year-long exhibition and lecture series addressing the legacy of Morris Lapidus that includes these five great hotels and the Fontainebleau, Eden Roc and Americana. The exhibition and lectures have stressed the connection between Brooklyn and Miami Beach. The Fontainebleau, birthed on the “F” train; built on the beach, the legacy of place and people come full circle. Now the shared space merges with two icons in a moment as ephemeral and enduring as the imprint of Brooklyn is ” in the da house.” The world conspires to seek truth in the simplicity of time. The crystallization of a moment is a message of love and diamonds. Purity rising. and the DNA of Brooklyn is complete on Miami Beach There is a full circle of poetic justice; let me explain.

The Fontainebleau was a spectacle on the horizon since its inception. The Opening in December of 1954 was broadcasted live into the hearts of America on TV. TV is not art, but then it came close. Now the façades have motion and emotion as the bejeweled image was broadcasted onto all phones through the platform of TIKTOK and Instagram. And the Fontainebleau has come into the modern age. And at once answers the quest of Morris Lapidus in his quest for architecture for E-Motion and Motion in architecture. That the symphony was also engaged adds spice to the equation as Lapidus began his life vocation as an actor, finding architecture after set designer. The trilogy of art, architecture and theater would always be close to the DNA of his architectural experience. This moment of spectacle puts pure love and jewelry. Lapidus felt all life was theater for this Jewish immigrant child whose mother fleeing the pogroms of Russia, into the welcoming arms of Ellis Island. Morris Lapidus found his home and heart in America. He left such an architectural impact that he was awarded The American Original Award in 2000 by the Smithsonian National Design Awards. Bravo!

Another twist in the poetry of time, I sure would love to know if the young JayZ played at the Bedford-Stuyvesant’s “People Place” designed by Lapidus in 1968 in Bedford-Stuyvesant? This was a full block playground and pool for children in at the corner of DeKalb Avenue and Marcy Avenue, the neighborhood where Shawn Corey Carter, a.k.a. JayZ, played. Morris Lapidus met New York’s master builder Robert Moses on a steamer destined for Rio where they enjoyed hours speaking about life, art, and architecture and giving birth to a friendship that would result in this pool at Bedford-Stuyvesant. In connecting the story of people, what an ironic sense of poetry, that JayZ was born on Dec 4, 1969. The same time the pool opened. Well Happy Birthday, JayZ. Seeing you on the building brought tears to my eyes in the same way that they brought tears to Lapidus’s when he first saw his creation alive with people.

Beyonce and JayZ on its elevation; gave a lift to the walls beyond the brick, mortar, and glass. It lifted the heart. And that is a gift of love. Thanks to the stars and moon above for the alignment of life that allows this manifestation to happen. The Fontainebleau has now become a touchstone for this conversation and marriage of time, place, and infamy: a place of love. Icons, of similar wit and woe, merged and married as one. “Basquiat, Beyonce, JayZ and Tiffany at the Fontainebleau” has joined in the spell binding magic of immortality. So fabulous that Paris, Tiffany is, and The Fontainebleau merge in a turn of circumstance with a trilogy of American originals.

#AboutLove #TiffanyAndCo

From the Downtown Towers to South Beach and @Beyonce and #JAYZ light up Miami with ABOUT LOVE. Please check it out! With Love from Brooklyn. © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York. CONTACT DEBORAH DESILETS, www.morrislapidus.com, [email protected], [email protected]