Morris Lapidus; Architect Designed Opulent Hotels, Won Belated Critical Acclaim

Morris Lapidus, the Miami-based architect best known for designing a series of unabashedly grandiose hotels during the 1950s, died on Thursday in his Miami Beach apartment. He was 98 years old.

At the height of his career, Lapidus, while a popular success, was mocked by many of his peers as a shlockmeister, a creator of glitzy, overly ornate buildings that had more to do with stage design than high-end architecture. One critic referred to his work as “boarding house baroque,” another as “pornography.”

But underneath all the decor, Lapidus had a knack for creating seductive forms. His curvaceous stairways, undulating walls, amoeba-shaped pools and dramatic use of light were often fused into structures that celebrated the kind of fluid motion and a seamless use of space that have since become staples of contemporary architecture. Trained in the classical style, Lapidus was also an exquisite draftsman whose drawings of ornamental sculptures of dolphins and gushing fountains reveal a precise hand and a keen eye--qualities that help explain the success of so many of his architectural designs.

In recent years, the architect went through a renaissance of sorts, and his work was praised by architects as diverse as the radical Dutch modernist Rem Koolhaas and postmodernists like the dean of the Yale University school of architecture, Robert A.M. Stern. Among Lapidus’ most famous designs is the 1954 Fontainebleau, whose sweeping lobby staircase--dubbed the staircase to nowhere--led up to a small cloakroom which allowed people to make a dramatic entry back down into the hotel after depositing their coats.

Lapidus was born in Odessa, Russia, the son of an indentured servant. He moved to America with his family in 1903, eventually enrolling in Brooklyn’s Boys High School and then New York University. Among his earliest memories as a young immigrant was a visit to Coney Island, where he was particularly impressed by the splashy lights of Luna Park. It was Coney Island, not the Bauhaus, that inspired him to become an architect.

Lapidus went on to study at Columbia University’s school of architecture, then a bastion of classical Beaux Arts design. An iconoclast and shrewd businessman, he began his career as a retail designer, combining elements of modern design like the open plan and a generous use of glass with a flair for the theatrical.

In 1947, Ben Novak, the Florida hotelier, hired Lapidus as the associate architect of the Sans Souci. Five years later Novak offered Lapidus his first free-standing building, the 560-room Fontainebleau, a massive faux-French structure with a curvaceous facade on Miami’s beachfront. That commission was followed by the neighboring Eden Roc one year later. Eventually, he designed more than 200 hotels.

But the range of projects he designed extended far beyond hotels. They included a swimming complex in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of his native Brooklyn and an apartment complex in Coney Island, as well as retail stores, showrooms and houses. His flamboyant--some would say decadent--aesthetic had its greatest impact on the architecture of commercial fantasy, in particular the Las Vegas hotels and casinos of the 1950s and 1960s.

“Lapidus was a far better architect than anyone ever gave him credit for being,” said Stern. “He had a great sense for glamour and he made us middle-class people feel a lot more stylish than we really were. That’s a great gift.”

A self-proclaimed populist, Lapidus had little patience for the stark, stripped-down modernist style that dominated the profession throughout most of his career, nor for the sheltered world of academia. His approach to design is summed up by the title of his 1996 autobiography: “Too Much Is Never Enough.” And the best of his projects, in fact, retain a sense of spontaneity and play that can elicit a smile in the most jaded critic.

When Lapidus retired in 1984, however, it was with a sense of bitterness toward a profession that had never given him a modicum of critical respect. In a recent interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he described the final day at his office as a wake.

“I hated the profession. It had raked me over the coals,” he said. “I wanted to throw everything away.”

He did just that, shipping off two truckloads of drawings, renderings and blueprints to a local incinerator. The moment seemed to sum up the arc of Lapidus’ career: a remarkably prolific architect who would have little lasting influence on his profession.

Now, many of his most famous works are being revived. The Eden Roc was recently remodeled. In New York, the once-derided 21-story Summit Hotel, completed in 1961, is being restored to its original gaudy splendor. And last year, Lapidus was honored by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in a ceremony attended by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. The ceremony was a vindication of sorts. At 98, 16 years after closing his office, Lapidus was finally receiving the critical acclaim that he felt was his due.

He is survived by his sons Adam and Richard.