Why go
Looking at architecture gives a practical way to compare Florida's regions and periods. The Tampa Bay Hotel, Vizcaya and Miami Beach belong to different expressions of wealth and tourism. Plantation ruins add the labor and slavery behind older economies, while Jacksonville's silent-film history broadens the cultural story beyond the southern resort cities.
The full story
Florida's architectural heritage follows changes in power and investment. Spanish coquina forts express the need to defend colonial settlements. Farther north, plantation buildings and industrial remains reflect agriculture and enslaved labor; Yulee Sugar Mill Ruins and Bulow Plantation Ruins preserve parts of that landscape. Coastal lighthouses record the importance of maritime routes. Railway investors and developers later built elaborate hotels. The Tampa Bay Hotel and St. Augustine's Ponce de León Hotel display the taste for Moorish-inspired design, while Vizcaya in Miami draws on Mediterranean Renaissance architecture. Miami Beach's interwar Art Deco offers another vocabulary: pastel colors, geometric forms and decorative references to tropical plants and animals. Projecting window shades, often called eyebrows, respond to the sun as well as shaping the facades. Other cultural histories extend beyond buildings. William Bartram described Florida's landscapes and peoples in his travels, and Jacksonville attracted silent-film production before Hollywood became the dominant center.