Miami Public Bath

The Miami Public Baths, a ritualized space of convergence between themes of the body, themes of architecture and themes of the city. The program depicts required elements necessary for a bath/spa complex. It is a project that operates under the assumption that a public bathing facility caters to a community, and that such a facility can be understood as a civic edifice. Likewise, the act of bathing can be recognized as a social activity, and a ritualized act. Today, the contemporary, highly commodified, and very private activities that we currently associate with modern spas and health clubs are distanced from the notion of the public bath complex as a space of collective gathering and communal ritual. While similar in programmatic terms, the social and cultural agendas that are now enfolded in the contemporary practice of bathing and the bath/spa complex are ideologically, historically and conceptually apart from the civic and social construction of bath culture and historical building types associated with it. The Miami Public Baths was intended to explore both the historic and the contemporary notions of bath, bathing, and spa.                                      Adam Drisin

The concept behind the project was to reinterpret ancient Roman’s Baths Complexes and Architecture, but no only create a visual relation with the water and sky, but also with the panoramic view of the city, Bicentennial Park, Biscayne Boulevard, and Biscayne Bay.