Commuters passing from Miami Beach to the mainland on the MacArthur Causeway have in recent months seen a soon-to-be iconic building on the Miami skyline start to take shape: the Waldorf Astoria Hotel & Residences.
The building, designed by Uruguayan-Canadian architect Carlos Ott and the architectural firm Sieger Suarez, is composed of nine cubes stacked on top of one another unevenly, giving the distinct impression that the entire 100-story structure could topple over. Standing at the base of the building, it’s hard not to think about the force of gravity and wonder what keeps it upright.
“ There are some things that were like optical illusions, like our core goes straight up, our elevator goes straight up. It may not look like that, but it does,” Ryan Shear, the managing partner for PMG, the developer, told WLRN during a recent hardhat tour of the building. “ The intent was supposed to be artistic in nature, where people would look up and say, ‘Man, that’s not a typical building. That’s a unique structure.’”…