James Bond fans will recall the pool-side scenes at the start of Goldfinger (1964). The curvaceous hotel, at which 007 meets the equally shapely Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton), is the Fontainebleau (above right), Miami Beach. Designed in 1952 by Morris Lapidus, the hotel attracted the likes of Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and John F. Kennedy.
The hotel became the last word in over-the-top glamour and fantasy. Lapidus even included a famous 'stairway to nowhere' (it actually went to a cloakroom) so that guests could make a suitably dramatic entrance. 'I wanted people to feel they were on stage,' Lapidus said, just before he died in 2001.
Throughout the 1950s, Lapidus created a series of Floridian hotels, including the Eden Roc and the Americana. In doing so he, with the help of Norman Giller, arrived at a design style that has only recently been coined MiMo (Miami modern).
MiMo was inspired by art deco and streamline-moderne with more than a twist of theatrical flamboy-ance, futurism and tropical exuber-ance. It was a response to the austere, often brutal international modernism being practised by Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, which was why Lapidus was often lampooned by serious architects for being kitsch.
The architecture itself had several defining characteristics, such as the use of kidney or boomerang shapes and motifs, 'cheese-hole' openings, and ornamental concrete panels. And it was nearly always applied to com-mercial buildings, especially hotels.
But that doesn't mean you can't adapt the MiMo style to your own interior design. Remember, the key elements are fun and excess with a touch of camp; MiMo might be modern but it's certainly not minimalism.
You're going to want plenty of colour and drama, so don't be afraid to use shades of apple green, avocado, cobalt blue and cherry. Metallics such as platinum should feature to create a sense of glamour. These can be applied with paint or paper.