Miami Beach — South Beach is a vibrant monument to the art deco designs of the late 1920s and '30s.

The Miami Design Preservation League is offering tours of the art deco district: guided, recorded and one that can be done by cell phone.

Lynne Sladky / AP (ENLARGE)

A tourist photographs an art deco style Post Office built in 1937 in Miami.

Lynne Sladky / AP (ENLARGE)

Palm trees poke through holes on the rooftop of a modern art deco building.

Lynne Sladky / AP (ENLARGE)

The original spire of the Tiffany Hotel, built in 1939, is an example of how Hollywood inspired art deco buildings in Miami.

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On a recent sun-drenched morning, guide Erika Brigham, who has lived in the area since 1988, kicked off the tour with a lively talk about the architectural history of the neighborhood.

"It's incredibly important to preserve the buildings," Brigham said. "They have a much more human scale than skyscrapers."

One stop is the Amsterdam Palace at Ocean Drive and 11th Street. It is of Mediterranean Revival design, with decorative columns, arched windows, clay barrel tile roofs and rough stucco walls. Today it's known as Casa Casuarina, a five-star luxury hotel. It is perhaps most famous for a bit of notoriety: Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace was gunned down outside in 1997.

Next up are three small hotels facing the ocean just north of the palatial villa. They are the Leslie, built in 1937; the Cardozo, constructed two years later; and the Carlyle, built in 1941. The Cardozo was named for one of the first Jewish justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, Benjamin Cardozo.

"People used a variety of names [for hotels]. Sometimes it was a daughter or a wife or a mistress," said Scott Timm, director of programs and outreach for MDPL.

The Carlyle was in the 1996 movie "The Birdcage," with Robin Williams, Gene Hackman and Nathan Lane.

All three oceanfront hotels have trademark art deco designs, including horizontal banding and "eyebrows," which are cantilevered sun shades over exterior windows that create interesting shadows on the facades.

"I knew I wouldn't get the information I wanted to just from reading a book," said Nancy Goward, 42, from Cape Cod, Mass. "It's beautiful, but it's really different."

These kinds of small hotels were built for middle-class customers because wealthy people always went to Palm Beach, Timm said. Their exteriors are rounded and are reminiscent of rounded automobiles and ocean liners. They are made of concrete, and porous limestone was used as a decorative element, Timm said. The limestone is South Florida coral rock.

The historic district extends from Sixth Street to 23rd Street, but the group tours usually stay in the teens and can take up to two hours.

"As you walk through the district, you can visualize earlier and then later periods of design ... to get a view of how design developed in the U.S. in the mid-20th century," said Jeff Donnelly, director of the tour school that trains the guides.

Neon lighting was also an important feature of art deco, Brigham said.

"Neon lighting was new to that time," she said. "It became a design element. ... It was both artistic and architectural."

The Blackstone Hotel on Eighth Street and Washington Avenue was built in 1929. It used to be one of the only hotels to welcome Jewish and black guests, Timm said. Today the district is very diverse, including welcoming the gay community.

"It's part of the story," Donnelly said. "The fact that many hoteliers discriminated against people who were Jewish is also a fact ... but the lower part [of Miami Beach] was open to people who were Jewish when many resorts around the United States were not."

The Tiffany Hotel at 801 Collins Ave., designed by L. Murray Dixon, was built in 1939. The front entry looks like a rocket ship, and its original spire is a slender rocket-like structure. Such futuristic details show how science fiction from the era, like the "Buck Rogers" comic strips and radio shows, seeped into architectural design.

Walking back to the Miami Design Preservation League building, where the tour begins, one may pass the News Cafe, known as a celebrity hangout from the glam Versace era. Next door is singer Gloria Estefan's restaurant Larios on the Beach, which serves Cuban food and blasts dance music.

"I think the important aspect to our community is architecture and preservation," said George Neary, associate vice president of tourism at the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. "You've got this whole era of architecture and design that Miami has become more famous for."

IF YOU GO

About the tours

The Art Deco Welcome Center of the Miami Design Preservation League, at Ocean Drive and 10th Street, offers three tour options: self-guided tours using iPod rentals, $15 ($10 for seniors and students); cellphone tours, $10 (dial 786-312-1229 and charge to a credit card); and guided tours, $20 (seniors and students, $15). Morning guided tours leave at 10:30 on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays; night tours are 6:30 p.m. Thursdays. The tour stops vary depending on the tour and the guide. Miami Design Preservation League: 305-672-2014, www.mdpl.org .