Miami Design Preservation League (MDPL) founder Barbara Baer Capitman in 1989 created the concept for the World Congress on Art Deco®. Mrs. Capitman herself in January 1990 conducted an “organizing symposium” to insure the planned inauguration and launch of a series of such World Congresses. She died in 1990. MDPL hosted the first World Congress on Art Deco® in Miami Beach, Florida in January 1991 during the annual Art Deco Weekend®. This was appropriate since Miami Beach was the first area in the world to recognize and take steps to protect a Twentieth Century historic district with Art Deco as the hallmark style.

The response to the World Congress was so enthusiastic that MDPL licensed it as a biannual event giving the International Coalition of Art Deco Societies (ICADS) the authority to vote on future sites for the Congresses. The ICADS is the successor organization to the National Coalition of Art Deco Societies (NCADS) that was founded in Miami Beach during the World Congress organizing symposium hosted by the Miami Design Preservation League in 1990.

The ICADS adopted a policy of alternating between U.S. host cities and sites around the world. The congresses have been held in the following locations:

1991 – Miami Beach, Florida, USA
1993 - Perth, Western Australia
1995 - London and Brighton, England
1997 - Los Angeles, California, USA
1999 - Napier, New Zealand
2001 - Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
2003 - Cape Town, South Africa
2005 - New York, New York, USA

2007 - Melbourne, Australia

The Art Deco Society of Montréal, Canada will host the 2009 Congress, May 24–30, 2009. For details, please see the Art Déco Montréal website.

ABOUT ART DECO

World Congress on Art Deco