The American architect William Lane designed new lifeguard towers for Miami Beach. However, Lane’s lifeguard towers are a far cry from purely functional constructions that only serve to provide the best possible view of the beach and coastline. With bright colors and sculptural forms, the transition between architecture and artwork seems to be fluid.

Brightly colored lifeguard towers

On Miami Beach, 36 new Lifeguard Towers monitor the coastline. These wooden guard houses, which not only stand out with their bright color combinations, were designed by US architect William Lane. They stand in a row along a seven-mile – more than eleven-kilometer – stretch of beach. This stretches from the southern tip of Miami Beach to 87th Street.

Six new Lifeguard Tower prototypes

Lane initially began studying sculpture before switching to architecture. However, his interest in a narrative form with a penchant for the sculptural and surreal has remained with him. One small work in particular made him famous worldwide: in 1995, he was commissioned for the first time to design five water guard stations for Miami Beach. These were to replace the lifeguard stations destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. One of the five lifeguard stations – a round house in pink and orange – was created in collaboration with the artist Kenny Scharf.

Lane’s pop and cheerful guardhouses subsequently attracted a lot of attention and became a trademark for the beach. 20 years later, the city of Miami Beach approached him again to design six new prototypes.

Striking silhouettes with panache

There are six versions of each prototype of the Lifeguard Towers in different color palettes: powdery lilac and bright purple meet bright orange, grass green is combined with turquoise and dark blue. A total of 36 lifeguard posts were created, which today look out to sea. Each of these posts stands on a base made of wooden beams and steel struts, which rests on a kind of sled. Instead of being firmly anchored in the sand, the guard posts are transportable. This allows them to be transported behind the dunes in the event of impending hurricanes, for example. The construction of the substructure raises the cabin and the viewing platform of a watchtower eight feet – around 2.4 meters – above the sand. The wooden frame constructions of the cabins are covered with standing seam aluminum roofs.

While one of the prototypes stands out from the other six due to its rounded shape, it is primarily the shape of the cabin roof that gives the others their distinctive silhouettes. On four of the six prototypes, the roof stretches from the side facing the sea to the rear of the cabin in a – differently shaped – curve. The side walls then fill out the shape of the roof, so to speak. Like the façade facing the sea, they are perpendicular to the platform. Another flat roof protrudes from the body of the cabin. This provides the necessary shade on the viewing platform.

Sloping spikes, undulating curves, curved stairs

While the roof of one of the prototypes curves in waves towards the upper end of the rear façade, the radially protruding spikes of another are reminiscent of a fragment of a star. Two further prototypes of the Lifeguard Towers have differently rounded curves in the shape of the roof.

In the fifth prototype, it is not only the profile that varies. The spikes of this roof are slightly slanted and protrude beyond the side facades of the cabin. One could be forgiven for thinking that the two spikes form the negative of a saddle roof with sloping surfaces towards the middle of the roof.

In contrast to the others, a sixth prototype is characterized by soft shapes. The protruding roof is circular, the platform is round and the staircase continues its curved shape, while the layout of the cabin is a combination of circular and polygonal segments.

Miami Beach Lifeguard Towers: View of the sea

Although the architecture of the guard houses is geared towards the function for which they were built, they also have a function that goes beyond this. “They are activators of public space – in this case of the beach. They are anthropomorphic and provide the shoreline with a unique formation of characters that are an expression for the identity and culture of the region,” says William Lane. He sees the guardhouses as an opportunity to help shape the beach as a public space and its experience.

Lane also draws a comparison with the Moai of Easter Island, the monumental stone sculptures. However, while most of these stone figures turn their backs to the sea and look inland, the Lifeguard Towers are oriented towards the sea. With their elevated position, however, they are not used for surveillance, but rather to keep an eye out for beachgoers in distress.

With their unusual shapes, the guardhouses look almost like sculptures. The transition between artwork and architecture seems fluid here. In his prototypes for the Miami Beach Lifeguard Tower, Lane combines allusions and references of all kinds – biomorphic and techno-fluid forms, bright colors, echoes of retro-futurism and Art Deco. In its description, Lane’s office refers, among other things, to the animism or biomimicry inherent in the individual guard houses. Due to the different designs, the individual guardhouses each seem to have their own “character”. The associations that the shapes can evoke are also numerous.

Also interesting: when we think of cubism, we immediately think of well-known painters and sculptors. But cubism also had an important influence on architecture. You can find out exactly what it looked like here: Cubism