The Alfred I. DuPont Building is a historic building in

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

. It is located at 169 East Flagler Street. Started in 1937 and completed in 1939, it is a 17-story rectangular building in the Modern style with

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

embellishments. It was the first skyscraper built after the

County courthouse A courthouse or court house is a structure which houses judicial functions for a governmental entity such as a state, region, province, county, prefecture, regency, or similar governmental unit. A courthouse is home to one or more courtrooms, ...

and the bust of 1928. Thus it represents Miami's emergence from the great depression. It replaced the Halcyon Hotel on this site. On January 4, 1989, it was added to the

U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. .

Alfred I. DuPont Alfred Irénée du Pont (May 12, 1864 – April 28, 1935) was an American industrialist, financier, philanthropist and a member of the influential Du Pont family. Alfred du Pont first rose to prominence through his work in his family's Delaware ...

was the owner of the Florida National Bank, the principal tenant of the building. Major tenants in 2023 are

Bench jeweler A bench jeweler is an artisan who uses a combination of skills to make and repair jewelry. Some of the more common skills that a bench jeweler might employ include antique restoration, silversmithing, goldsmithing, stone setting, engraving, f ...

s who use a combination of skills to make and repair

jewelry Jewellery (or jewelry in American English) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment such as brooches, ring (jewellery), rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the ...

. Some of the more common skills that a bench jeweler might employ include antique restoration,

silversmith A silversmith is a metalworker who crafts objects from silver. The terms ''silversmith'' and ''goldsmith'' are not exact synonyms, as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are (or were, at least) largely the same but differed in that t ...

ing,

goldsmith A goldsmith is a Metalworking, metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Modern goldsmiths mainly specialize in jewelry-making but historically, they have also made cutlery, silverware, platter (dishware), plat ...

ing, stone setting,

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design on a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ar ...

fabrication Fabrication may refer to: * Manufacturing, specifically the crafting of individual parts as a solo product or as part of a larger combined product. Processes in arts, crafts and manufacturing *Semiconductor device fabrication, the process used t ...

wax carving {{unreferenced, date=April 2012 Wax carving is the shaping of wax using tools usually associated with machining: rotary tools, saws, files and burins or gravers. Actual knives can be used and most certainly are, but the hardness of the material i ...

lost-wax casting Lost-wax castingalso called investment casting, precision casting, or ''cire perdue'' (; borrowed from French)is the process by which a duplicate sculpture (often a metal, such as silver, gold, brass, or bronze) is cast from an original scul ...

electroplating Electroplating, also known as electrochemical deposition or electrodeposition, is a process for producing a metal coating on a solid substrate through the redox, reduction of cations of that metal by means of a direct current, direct electric cur ...

forging Forging is a manufacturing process involving the shaping of metal using localized compression (physics), compressive forces. The blows are delivered with a hammer (often a power hammer) or a die (manufacturing), die. Forging is often classif ...

, &

polishing Polishing is the process of creating a smooth and shiny surface by rubbing it or by applying a chemical treatment, leaving a clean surface with a significant specular reflection (still limited by the index of refraction of the material accordi ...

. manufactures & wholesale watches for

Rolex Rolex () is a Swiss watch brand and manufacturer based in Geneva, Switzerland. Founded in 1905 as ''Wilsdorf and Davis'' by German businessman Hans Wilsdorf and his eventual brother-in-law Alfred Davis in London, the company registered ''Rolex ...

Richard Mille Richard Mille is a Swiss luxury watch company founded in 2001 by Dominique Guenat and Richard Mille, based in Les Breuleux, Switzerland. The brand specialises in high-priced clockwork watches, which have been criticised by some as "ridiculous" ...

. The other major building in Miami is the

Seybold Building Seybold Building is a historic jewelry building in Miami, Florida. It was designed by Kiehnel and Elliott. The building was erected in two stages. The first three levels of the building were completed in 1921. John Seybold had a bakery and confe ...

for jewelry, diamonds and fine watches.

References

External links

Florida's Office of Cultural and Historical Programs
* Office buildings completed in 1939 National Register of Historic Places in Miami Skyscraper office buildings in Miami Art Deco architecture in Florida Office buildings on the National Register of Historic Places 1939 establishments in Florida {{Miami-struct-stub