Ocean Study Buildings Part of Island's Architectural Heritage

The historically designated Miami Marine Stadium is not the only building of architectural interest on Virginia Key.

Miami Architecture, the new AIA guidebook, reveals the mysteries of institutional buildings than span 16 acres on both sides of the Rickenbacker Causeway.

The area includes the buildings that are part of the University of Miami Rosensteil School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS) and NOAA (National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration.

“Taken together with the Seaquarium and Marine Stadium, it represents an impressive infrastructure of marine and aquatic facilities tied to the causeway system,” state the authors of the guide.

On the west side of the Rickenbacker Causeway is University of Miami’s RSMAS, with its focus on the study of oceans. On the east, NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Metereological Laboratory and National Marine Fisheries Service and Southeast Fisheries Science Center.

The oldest University of Miami RSMAS building is the 1952 Alexandrine duPont Collier Building, designed by Marion Manley.

Nearby is the 1966 Doherty Marine Science Center, designed by the firm of Ferendino Grafton Spillis Candela. The building was originally built for NOAA. The Miami Architecture guidebook highlights its most distinctive feature:

(I)ts waterfront facade includes the type of concrete egg-crate window wall the firm popularized in the 1960s, and is similar in spirit to the firm’s contemporary work for Miami -Dade College. Here, the egg crate is broken by a projecting concrete stair.

Along the causeway is the Science Administration building (Abramovitz/Kingland, architects), completed in 1985, and described in the guide as “vaguely nautical.”

Across the Causeway are the two NOAA buildings. Of particular interest to the guidebook authors is the laboratory building, with its detached office wings that lift high above the ground and “fine-grained grid of concrete window frames with deeply recessed glass.”

More on the architectural heritage of Virginia Key can be found in Miami Architecture (University of Florida Press).

UPDATE INFO ON PRESENTATION: The guidebook's authors Allan Shulman, Randall Robinson and Jeff Donnelly will discuss their new book "Miami Architecture: An AIA Guide Featuring Downtown, the Beaches, and Coconut Grove at this year's Miami Book Fair International, which takes place Nov. 14-21.

Photo: Virginia Key Signing. In 1948, the University of Miami signed a long-term lease with Dade County for land on Virginia Key to house the Marine Institute (now RSMAS). Seated second from right is County Commissioner Charles Crandon and to his left, President Ashe. Courtesy: University of Miami library.

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