Written by RuinMyTrip Editorial from published research and official sources, not from a personal trip. It is not a traveler review and is never counted in the community rating. How we research.
attraction · Miami
Eighteen Dollars, Free After Five on Thursdays, and the Building Is the Best Exhibit
Review of Perez Art Museum Miami
Been to Miami? This page needs you more than it needs us.
A first-hand review outranks desk research every time, and yours will sit above this one.
Share your experiencePAMM sits on the downtown bayfront in a Herzog and de Meuron building whose hanging gardens and deep shaded veranda are the most successful piece of architecture in the city. The collection is modern and contemporary with a real emphasis on art of the Americas and the Caribbean, which is the correct emphasis for Miami and makes it a genuinely different museum rather than a smaller version of a New York one. Adult admission is 18 dollars. It is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, open 11am to 6pm most days, and open until 9pm on Thursdays with free entry after 5pm. That Thursday evening is the single best free thing in Miami and almost nobody outside the city knows about it: the veranda at dusk over Biscayne Bay, with the museum open around you, costs nothing. The thing to understand before you go is that the building is not a container for the visit, it is half of it. The plant columns hanging from the canopy, the way the shade is engineered rather than decorative, and the terrace looking across the water are the parts people remember. If you arrive expecting a large encyclopaedic collection you will be disappointed; if you arrive expecting a superb building holding a focused collection you will not be. It is downtown, next to the science museum in Museum Park, and it is on the free Metromover, which makes it one of the cheapest and easiest cultural afternoons available to anybody staying on the mainland. Two closed days a week is the trap. Tuesday and Wednesday catch a lot of short trips.
What was great
One of the best museum buildings in the United States, with hanging gardens and a bayfront veranda that are free to enjoy on Thursday evenings after 5pm. A focused collection of art of the Americas and the Caribbean that you will not see assembled this way elsewhere. On the free Metromover.
What nearly ruined the trip
Closed both Tuesday and Wednesday, which removes two days from a short trip. Eighteen dollars is fair but the collection is smaller than the building leads you to expect. Parking is paid and the surrounding downtown blocks are functional rather than pleasant.
More from Miami
Comments
No comments yet.