Miami, Florida Museums

Miami is the cultural, economic, and financial center of South Florida in the United States. The city lies between the Everglades to the west and Biscayne Bay to the east and is the sixth most densely populated city in the United States.

Miami is also a major tourism hub for international visitors, ranking second in the country after New York City.

Miami is was ranked as the third-richest city in the United States and is the largest city with a Cuban-American plurality.

PortMiami is the busiest cruise port in the world in both passenger traffic and cruise lines, and refers to itself as the “Cruise Capital of the World.”

Miami enjoys a vibrant culture that is influenced by a diverse population from all around the world.

Some of the key museums in Miami include the Lowe Art Museum, Frost Art Museum, Frost Museum of Science, HistoryMiami, Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami Children’s Museum, Pérez Art Museum, and the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens.

Virtual Tour of the Museums in Miami, Florida

Lowe Art Museum
Pérez Art Museum Miami
Vizcaya Museum and Gardens
The Wolfsonian–Florida International University
Frost Art Museum – Florida International University (FIU)
Coral Castle

Highlights Tour of the Museums in Miami, Florida

Lowe Art Museum

The Lowe Art Museum is an art museum operated by the University of Miami and was the first art museum in South Florida.

The museum’s collection includes Greco-Roman antiquities, Renaissance, Baroque, 17th- and 19th-century European art, 19th-century American Art, and modern art.

The museum’s national and international works come from Latin America, Africa, Asia, Native America, Ancient Americas, and the Pacific Islands.

The Lowe Art Museum collection is divided into fourteen thematic rooms, plus the Palley Pavilion, dedicated to the glass collection, and an outdoor garden of contemporary art sculptures.

Lowe Art Museum – 360 Views

Pérez Art Museum Miami

The Pérez Art Museum Miami is a contemporary art museum founded in 1984 as the Center for the Fine Arts.

In 1996 it became known as the Miami Art Museum until it was renamed in 2013 upon the opening of its new location and building.

The museum’s collection contains over 2,000 works, mainly 20th- and 21st-century art from the Americas, Western Europe, and Africa.

Much of the museum’s collection has been donated, and the museum has successfully attracted donors to contribute directly with artworks and funds.

The Pérez Art Museum Miami is part of the 20-acre Museum Park formerly Bicentennial Park.

Pérez Art Museum Miami – 360 Views

Vizcaya Museum and Gardens

The Vizcaya Museum and Gardens include Italian Renaissance gardens, villa, native woodland landscape, and a historic village outbuildings compound.

The landscape and architecture were influenced by Veneto and Tuscan Italian Renaissance models and designed in the Mediterranean Revival architecture style, with Baroque elements.

Previously known as Villa Vizcaya, is was the former villa and estate of businessman James Deering, located on Biscayne Bay in Coconut Grove, Miami, Florida.

The villa’s museum contains more than seventy rooms of distinctive architectural interiors decorated with numerous antiques, which include 15th to 19th-century European decorative art and furnishings.

The villa facade’s primary influence is the Villa Rezzonico in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It is referred to sometimes as the “Hearst Castle of the East.”

Vizcaya Museum and Gardens – 360 Views

The Wolfsonian–Florida International University

The Wolfsonian–Florida International University is a museum, library, and research center with a collection that illustrates the power of art and design.

The Wolfsonian’s collections comprise approximately 180,000 pieces from the period 1885 to 1945.

The collection features furniture, industrial-design objects, works in glass, ceramics, metal, rare books, periodicals, works on paper, paintings and textiles.

The countries represented include Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, United States, Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Japan, and the former Soviet Union.

The Wolfsonian-FIU is located in the heart of the Art Deco District of Miami Beach, Florida, and has been a division within Florida International University.

Wolfsonian-FIU – 360 Views

Frost Art Museum – Florida International University (FIU)

The Frost Art Museum is a museum located on the campus of Florida International University (FIU). It was founded in 1977 as The Art Museum at Florida International University (TAM/FIU).

The museum’s collection includes nearly 6,000 objects, with an emphasis on American printmaking from the 1960s and 1970s, photography, Pre-Columbian objects, and the contemporary Caribbean and Latin American artworks.

In support of the University’s arts program, select student’s artworks since the 1980s feature in the emerging artist collection, many of whom have gone on to gain national and international recognition.

The Frost Art Museum also offers outdoor sculpture programs with 57 monumental works by the influential sculptors of contemporary world art.

Frost Art Museum – 360 Views

Coral Castle

Coral Castle is a set of oolite limestone structures created by the Latvian-American Edward Leedskalnin (1887–1951). The structural compositions comprise of numerous megalithic stones, mostly limestone, each weighing several tons.

The grounds of Coral Castle consist of about 1,000 tons of stones in the form of walls, carvings, furniture, and a castle tower. Mistakenly believed to be made of coral, it is made of oolite, which is found throughout southeastern Florida.

The stones are fastened together without mortar. The craftsmanship is so elegant that the stones are connected only by using their weight to keep them together.

Among the features and carvings is a two-story castle tower that served as Leedskalnin’s living quarters, a sundial, a Polar telescope, an obelisk, a barbecue, water well, a fountain, celestial stars and planets, and pieces of furniture.

The furniture pieces include a heart-shaped table, a table in the shape of Florida, twenty-five rocking chairs, chairs resembling crescent moons, a bathtub, beds, and a throne.