The Art Deco architecture of Miami Beach, making up the largest district of this style in the country, is cause for the 15th Annual Art Deco Weekend Festival celebration Jan. 9-12.
The Miami Design Preservation League sponsors guided walking and trolley tours of the Art Deco District, covering some of the 650 designated buildings in the modernist style of the l930s and l940s. These include restored hotels and cafes on Ocean Drive, at the center of the historic district. Big bands, the Moon Over Miami Ball, old cars, antiques vendors and artists recall the area's jazz age heyday.\For further information, contact the league at (305) 672-2014.
-- Another area of artistic interest in the Miami area is the Bakehouse Art Complex in the city's Wynwood district, a group of artists' studios and galleries in a former bakery.
Artists maintain open studios, working while visitors watch, and their works are on sale. The Bakehouse project also participates in workshops and seminars for adults and neighborhood children.
For information, call (305) 576-2828.
-- A piece of the original company town of Crossett, Ark., has been restored as a historic monument, a relic of a once-common type of community.
The Old Company House has been returned to its original early 1900s state, showing how simply workers for the Crossett Lumber Company (now part of Ceorgia-Pacific Corp.) lived on their salaries of 11 to 15 cents an hour.
One of first "shotgun" mill houses built by the company, it's painted a regimental "Crossett gray" inside and out.