1977-
Architectural Firm

Quick Success.

Arquitectonica — the name means "architectural" in Spanish — was responsible for placing Miami on the contemporary architectural map. In 1982, when the firm was only five years old, its row of fashionable condominium towers was completed on Brickell Avenue, and the people who could afford the $400,000 per unit could not move in fast enough. One of these towers, the Atlantis, became an icon — Miami's answer to an Eiffel Tower — partly due to its weekly appearance on the popular television show Miami Vice. This $11 million project was preceded by townhouses in Houston, a theater in Key West, an art gallery in Philadelphia, and an amusement park in Nigeria. Arquitectonica had its origins in the collaboration on the Pink House of Laurinda Spear and Bernardo Fort-Brescia, who would later become founding members of the firm, as well as husband and wife. As...