Pérez Art Museum Miami

Top choice


One of Miami's most impressive spaces, designed by Swiss architects Herzog & De Meuron, integrates tropical foliage, glass, concrete and wood – a melding of tropical vitality and fresh modernism that fits perfectly in Miami. PAMM stages some of the best contemporary exhibitions in the city, with established artists and impressive newcomers. The permanent collection rotates through unique pieces every few months – drawing from a treasure trove of work spanning the last 80 years. Don't miss it.

The temporary shows and retrospectives bring major crowds (past exhibitions have included the works of famed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and kinetic artist Julio Le Parc). The outdoor space has hanging gardens that took an entire two months to install.

If you need a little breather amid all this contemporary culture, PAMM has a first-rate cafe, or you can simply hang out in the grassy park or lounge on a deck chair enjoying the views over the water.

This art institution inaugurated Museum Park, a patch of land that oversees the broad blue swath of Biscayne Bay.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

2. Freedom Tower

0.41 MILES

An iconic slice of Miami's old skyline, the richly ornamented Freedom Tower is one of two surviving towers modeled after the Giralda bell tower in Spain’s…

3. Museum of Art and Design at MDC

0.43 MILES

Miami-Dade College operates a small but well-curated art museum in Downtown; the permanent collection includes works by Matisse, Picasso and Chagall and…

4. Miami Children's Museum

0.61 MILES

This museum, located between South Beach and Downtown Miami, isn’t exactly a museum but more like an uberplayhouse, with areas for kids to practice all…

5. Miami City Cemetery

0.65 MILES

This quiet graveyard, the final resting place of some of Miami-Dade’s most important citizens, is a sort of narrative of the history of the city cast in…

6. Bayfront Park

0.71 MILES

Few American parks can claim to front such a lovely stretch of turquoise as Biscayne Bay, but Miamians are lucky like that. Noted artist and landscape…

7. Black Archives Historic Lyric Theater

0.75 MILES

Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald once walked across the stage of the Lyric, a major stop on the ‘Chitlin’ Circuit’ – the black live-entertainment trail…

8. Jungle Island

0.79 MILES

Jungle Island, packed with tropical birds, alligators, orangutans, chimps, lemurs, a (wait for it Napoleon Dynamite fans) liger (a cross between a lion…