who loves po-mo?

Reruns! Like them or hate them, one thing is for sure: they make you look at the details. If you have already seen a TV show a long time ago, you are more likely to leave the story in the background and focus on the details. That is when you discover how lame some of these details were and question how could you have missed it in the first place.

That is not the case here. It was not so much a detail nor a lame one for that matter. I'm talking about Miami Vice, specifically about its opening sequence. How could you miss the big hole in the Atlantis building? Well, I did. But then again, I wasn't really looking or educated. It was now in one late night while working with the TV noise in the backgroung to keep me company that I really noticed it. A building with a hole poked in it. And me thinking MVRDV/Blanca Lleó's Mirador was the first - my naivety about the primes carries on.

The Atlantis Condominium was created by Arquitectonica, an international architecture, interior design and planning corporation headquartered in Miami. Arquitectonica began in 1977 as an experimental studio founded by Bernardo Fort-Brescia, Laurinda Hope Spear, Hervin Romney, Andres Duany, and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. The later two would end up founding Duany Plater Zyberk, also in Miami, becoming a leader in the New Urbanism movement.

Foreshadowing "culturalist" aspirations, the Atlantis building is described as a "modern version of a village, but in a vertical context". It is not even curious, then, that MVRDV would years later visualize this concept again for its own hollowed out building. Even so, here it is.

Mirador building concept

Watch this small promo about Arquitectonica:

Also, check out Jan Hammer's "Crockett's Theme". It's a great example of the "instrumental New Wave", popular during the 80's that seem to be inspiring today's 80's revival - (Radio Dept, M83, Twin Shadow, Wild Nothing, etc).