Between 1923 and 1943, Miami Beach assembled the world's largest concentration of Art Deco architecture—over 800 buildings—along a three-square-mile strip that zoning codes nearly demolished in the 1970s. Barbara Baer Capitman led a preservation campaign that secured National Register status in 1979, rescuing pastel-washed hotels, streamline moderne facades, and nautical motifs that now define Ocean Drive's visual grammar. The district's geometry—rounded corners, eyebrow overhangs, racing stripes in pink and aqua—was born from Depression-era optimism and Miami's subtropical light, which demands pigment intense enough to hold against bleached skies. Today, a South Beach food & art deco tour pairs this architectural catalog with the neighborhood's Cuban, Argentine, and Caribbean culinary traditions. The 1930s hotels that line Washington Avenue and Collins Avenue shelter ground-floor cafeterias where cortadito flows from mid-century espresso machines, and empanada counters operate in storefronts unchanged since the Mariel boatlift. The district's food culture reflects successive waves of Latin American immigration—each decade layering new flavors onto sidewalks originally designed for tourists in white linen suits. Walking tours along Ocean Drive traverse the thirteen-block corridor where Henry Hohauser and L. Murray Dixon built over sixty hotels in less than two decades. The Cardozo, built in 1939, displays Dixon's trademark vertical emphasis—fluted pilasters that channel rainwater and eyes upward. The Leslie, designed by Albert Anis in 1937, features porthole windows and a cantilevered eyebrow that casts shadow across its entrance at noon. These structures were built to house seasonal visitors for twelve dollars a week; today they anchor a district where architectural walking tours intersect with culinary exploration. The neighborhood's food scene concentrates along Española Way, a 1925 Mediterranean Revival village that pivoted to Latin American kitchens after World War II. Stone crab claws, conch fritters, and Nicaraguan nacatamales appear on menus within five blocks of pastel hotels whose neon signs—restored by the Miami Design Preservation League—glow against Atlantic humidity. The district operates daily from 8am to 7pm, with morning light offering the clearest views of facades before midday heat softens their edges into haze.