Miami and Miami Beach has a varied selection of museums and galleries, which unlike the UK are almost entirely privately funded by wealthy philanthropists.

The Bass Museum is a museum of contemporary art, established in 1963 by Jewish immigrants who made their fortune from sugar.

The Wolfsonian is a museum which uses its collection to illustrate the persuasive power of art. The museum opened in 1995 is named after Mitchell Wolfson Jr, whose father was a businessman and the first Jewish mayor of Miami Beach.

The Rubell Museum houses their family collection in a building formerly used by the US drug enforcement agency as a warehouse for seized drugs. It opened in 1993 and is a collection of contemporary art. It is also home to an excellent modern Spanish restaurant, Leku.

In addition we visited the Britto Gallery, a shop selling art work and products created by Brazilian born pop artist Romero Britto. He is reputed to be the most collected and licenced artist in history with his works extending from Disney figurines to London taxis.

In 1926 much of the infrastructure of wooden buildings of Miami Beach was destroyed by a major hurricane. The Brown Hotel is one of the few surviving wooden buildings. Miami Beach still attracted visitors and in response investors created small scale hotels and rooming houses in the Art Deco style which now represent the historic district of South Beach.

The most noteable architects were Henry Hohauseur and Murray Dixon with building taking place between from 1935 to 1941. For many of the hotels, their first occupants were service personnel training in the area before being sent to the Second World War.

From the 1950s onwards building of much larger hotels along the beach started north of 21st Street, with the Art Deco area remaining between 6th and 21st Streets. Visitor demand in the Art Deco area fell and the district declined into disrepair. There were strong commercial pressures from developers to dismantle the district with large hotels and casinos planned. However, locals led by Barbara Baer Capitman staged a campaign to secure the heritage of the district and in 1979 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with a local preservation society overseeing the successful renovation of the area.

The sea facing promenade, Ocean Drive, closed to traffic during our visit, now comprises an array of restored Art Deco hotels some of which have been expanded by linking them to hotels on Collins Avenue running parallel behind Ocean Drive.