Craig Robins distinctly remembers the landscape prior to 2001, when Miami Design District, then owned in part by his Dacra real estate development firm, comprised only furniture showrooms. Even as Art Basel Miami Beach shut down just before its anticipated premiere, he sensed something major was afoot for his company, the neighborhood, and the city as a whole: ‘I knew if we took Art Basel and combined it with the sex appeal of Miami it would be explosive.’

The next year, everything changed, Robins says: ‘It was mind-blowing. The fair was extraordinary. This vision Sam [Keller, the former director of Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach] had was really working.’ Dacra’s plan for redeveloping Miami Design District into a mixed-use shopping, dining and cultural destination had also sprung to life, and Robins saw potential for other investments throughout the city. ‘Art Basel transformed Miami into being a place that really advocated and supported culture,’ he recalls. ‘We were probably the largest property holder in the Art Deco district, but it was a party town. Then, boom! In one year we were on the map.’

On the personal side, during that time Robins also remembers welcoming into his collection a painting by Kehinde Wiley and works from Marlene Dumas and David Hammons, artists he now collects in depth. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been at the fair and not bought anything,’ he says. ‘But back then I was more impulsive. Now I’m more patient.’

Robins’s collection not only decorates the walls and floors of Dacra’s offices but also fills a New York apartment and the Miami home he shares with his wife, Jackie Soffer, CEO of Turnberry Associates real estate company. They also live among a number of amazing furnishings they pick up at Design Miami, a show Robins started in 2005 that runs concurrently with Art Basel Miami Beach. Since then, the concept has spawned Design Miami/Basel, Design Miami/Shanghai, and Design Miami/Paris, which launches next year.

Yet the growth of Design Miami is just another feather in the cap of the visionary who spearheaded the evolution of Miami Design District, oft considered the unofficial after-hours hangout for the fair’s colorful crowd and locals who want in on the action. ‘It’s really a neighborhood that is all about celebrating architecture and design,’ he says. ‘And I think that it’s like a physical manifestation of this cultural happening that we all advocated for and did together.’ Many of its buildings are works of art themselves, especially the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, with its perforated triangular geometry, and Museum Garage, with exteriors inspired by a surrealist parlor game. (Dacra is also currently collaborating with artist Daniel Arsham, a graduate of DASH [the District’s Design and Architecture Senior High school] on Class A office space.) The world’s most elite fashion brands and designers also make their marks, regularly hosting their own installations for the public – Louis Vuitton often sets the bar. ‘In the District, we have these very expensive luxury stores but we also have the cheapest parking in Miami,’ Robins says. ‘I want to make it a place everybody can come.

‘In a way, the Design District is one of many examples of the power that Art Basel had in our community, because you walk around and there’s the Zaha Hadid installation, the Marc Newson installation, that John Baldessari installation – it all comes out of Art Basel and Design Miami,’ Robins says. ‘Art Basel is the most important thing that ever happened to the city. It gave us a real role in the cultural global dialogue. Everybody should have access to experiencing creativity. Art, design, they’re the frontiers from which mankind advances.’

This article was originally commissioned for the Art Basel Miami Beach magazine 2022.

Please see also Craig Robins as part of Conversations Art Basel Miami Beach 2022 'The Miami Effect: the Craig Robins, de la Cruz, and Margulies Collections'.

Captions for full-bleed images: 1. Craig Robins. Photo by Camilo Rios. 2. Virgil Abloh, Dollar a Gallon III, 2019, in the Miami Design District.