Shades of Pink: Arquitectonica’s Pink House

Before the Barbie film exploded on screens with a color palette of 100 different shades of pink, Arquitectonica created Miami Shores’ Pink House in 1978. The waterfront villa, fabricated from concrete and clad in stucco with glass-block windows and a voyeuristic porthole, echoed South Florida’s Art Deco and Modernist architectural vernacular. Its architects, husband and wife team Bernardo Fort-Brescia and Laurinda Spear boldly painted its planes in five shades of pink ranging from a whisper to near red. An exterior row of royal palm trees and an interior lap pool complete the tropical cadence. The project helped launch their Coconut Grove-based firm. Today, Arquitectonica is a global company. 

Miami of the seventies was no longer the Magic City that vacationers flocked to post WWII through the sixties. South Beach’s Art Deco district sat decaying with hotels falling victim to the wrecking ball. The city became known for elderly retirees and violent Cocaine Cowboys. At Miami’s lowest point, in 1981, it was the crime capital of the US. Arquitectonica’s Pink House signaled a cultural change. Its status went beyond the architectural academia of Progressive Architecture and Domus when mainstream publications featured it. The New York Times, Life, Time, Newsweek, House Beautiful, Vogue, and GQ showcased its rosy hues and edgy lines. In 1984, the new crime drama TV series Miami Vice chose the Pink House for the home of an arms dealer played by Bruce Willis. 

Miami Vice displayed Arquitectonica’s glass-clad, primary-hued Atlantis condominium building in its opening credits. The Biscayne Bay high rise, with a touch of magic realism, boasts a cut-out five-story sky court that includes a palm tree, a red spiral staircase, and a round pool. Its architects, the Peruvian-born Fort Brescia, and the American Spear represented the city’s cosmopolitan mix. They brought Miami academic credibility with Ivy League educations, Fort-Brescia from Princeton and Harvard, and Spear from Brown and Columbia. Their work pierced the Miami skyline and the international psyche. Arquitectonica now has offices in eleven cities in the US and beyond; it started with the Pink House.