It looks like the old Dyer building is on the way to a recovery, courtesy of Miami-Dade College. From the Miami Herald:
Three years after taking possession of Miami’s grandly historic but long vacant federal building, Miami Dade College is nearing completion on the initial phase of a massive $60 million renovation that will return the 1933 Neoclassical masterpiece to public use.
The public college has wrapped up cleanup work to remove asbestos and mold from the vast former courthouse and post office, which has been shuttered since 2008. Next comes remodeling and restoration, a job expected to take two years, said Miami Dade’s interim president, Rolando Montoya, in an interview.
Once that’s done, the monumental building will house the college’s architecture, interior design and fashion design programs in appropriately splendid surroundings. The college also plans to install flexible-use classrooms, robotics and computer labs, faculty and administrative offices, and a conference center with capacity for 400 people.
“I think this is going to be beautiful,” Montoya said: “The building will be an interesting combination of several historical facilities with some high-tech, very modern facilities. It’s very nice architecturally, this combination.”
But, he added: “It’s a lot that has to be done. The building was in very bad shape.”
The limestone-clad federal building, widely regarded as one of the finest works of architecture in Miami, occupies most of a city block at Northeast First Avenue and Third Street across the street from the college’s Wolfson Campus in downtown Miami. Known in latter years as the David W. Dyer building after a prominent judge, the building is on the National Register of Historic places and is also a city of Miami designated historic landmark.
As part of the renovation, the college will restore the Dyer building’s pièce de résistance, an ornate central courtroom adorned by a mural depicting the role of justice in Florida’s development. The federal General Services Administration meanwhile will do its best to restore the badly deteriorated contemporary abstract frescoes by artist David Novros that grace the building’s interior courtyard, Montoya said.
I have always liked the grand courtroom's mural. There are those that find it somehow offensive, but I believe it to be a work of art that reflected life in Miami at the time it was painted with all its grandeur and warts, and should be preserved.
ReplyDeleteHopefully we can use it again for trials from time to time!
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ReplyDeleteJudicial feuds sell. Architecture posts don’t.
I was honored to try a few cases in the grand courtroom. One case had hours and hours of my client incriminating himself with taped phone calls and body bugs. I would concentrate on the murals and looked for the not so obvious images. It helped greatly to pass the time. Another was with Judge King but that is for another day. Also saw Lady Ellen testify in that courtroom as I recall in one of the courtbroom cases. And I recall going there as part of a law school project many many moons ago. It should be saved as it is a masterpiece.
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