Paco Martinez Has Appealed The Babylon Apartments’ Historic Designation

Photo via Flickr/ Phillip Pessar

Paco Martinez, short for Francisco “Paco” Martinez, the owner of the little red building on Brickell Bay Drive called the Babylon Apartments, is not happy about what’s happened to his plans to demolish. On July 5th the City of Miami Historic Preservation Board officially designated the Babylon in acknowledgement of its pioneering postmodernist design. Demolition was averted, almost. With only 15 days to appeal the decision before it became official, Martinez finally appealed yesterday, the day before the deadline, according to the Miami’s historic preservation office. Back in limbo, the appeal brings the Babylon in front of city commissioners, who will decide its destiny a few months from now.

Arquitectonica’s Iconic Babylon Apartments Wins Historic Designation With 6-0 Vote

Photo by Phillip Pessar.

This just in from today’s City of Miami Historic Preservation Board meeting! In a unanimous 6-0 vote, the board has voted in favor of historically designating the Babylon Apartments on Brickell Bay Drive, a seminal and very early work by architecture firm Arquitectonica which significantly influenced the firm’s later works as well as decades of modern and contemporary architecture in Miami. There is a 30-day appeals process, but the Babylon is closer than ever to being saved.  To recap what has happened up until now, I wrote a nice summary over at the Architect’s Newspaper. Also, check back here for more info on what’s next for the Babylon after today’s HBP meeting as it becomes available.

Debate Over Arquitectonica’s Babylon Apartments Preservation Goes National

The Babylon Apartments. Photos courtesy Phillip Pessar.

The aesthetically pioneering Babylon Apartments has a date with the City of Miami Historic Preservation Board on July 5th, potentially resulting in historic designation status. Architecture firm Arquitectonica’s “first building that wasn’t a house,” as described by one of its heads and cofounders Bernardo Fort-Brescia, is also one of its most important, and a seminal piece of Miami’s architectural history. The debate over the Babylon’s fate has also become national news. Miami Condo Investments Editor Sean McCaughan’s report on uncertain future of the Babylon is over at the Architect’s Newspaper:

With its bright red, ziggurat form, one of Miami-based architecture firm Arquitectonica’s first buildings, the Babylon Apartments in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood, is at risk of demolition if its longtime owner, a former “spaghetti western” movie star, gets his way. The six story building is an icon of subtropical postmodernist architecture in Miami; it’s also one of the signatures of the city’s ‘Miami Vice’-era 1980s comeback. The Babylon also earned Arquitectonica its first international award, a Progressive Architecture Citation Award, only a few years after the firm’s founding in 1977. More…