Both of Miami Art Week's big fairs are in Miami Beach this year. Design Miami runs December 1 through 6 at Convention Center Drive and 19th Street, according to Design Miami. Art Basel Miami Beach opens to the public December 4 through 6 at the Miami Beach Convention Center, after invitation-only days on December 2 and 3. As of late October, the Miami Design District's own December calendar reads "No upcoming events found for this month."
On NE 41st Street, Art Week starts on Tuesday, December 1, at 23 NE 41st Street. That's the building that housed the de la Cruz Collection for 15 years. ICA Miami now owns it, and the museum will open a seven-week exhibition there that morning. If you live in the District, the useful part is the stretch between now and then. The museum next door goes quiet for a little over a week, and the street fills up with new storefronts.
Why 23 NE 41st Street Carries Weight
Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz built their museum in the Design District in 2009 to share their contemporary art collection. They described it as an extension of their home, and admission was free. WLRN reported in April 2024 that the collection had closed after 15 years in the District. The collection's homepage still opens with the line "The de la Cruz Collection is closed."
In October 2024, the Miami Herald reported that ICA Miami had bought the building next door for $25 million. The Herald said the money came from dozens of South Florida philanthropists, including developer and Design District co-founder Craig Robins. The purchase added 30,000 square feet, which roughly doubles the museum's size. Alex Gartenfeld, ICA Miami's artistic director, told the Herald that the purchase "really does feel like an affirmation of our mission, which is free access to the best in arts and education." ARTnews reported the acquisition the same day and noted that renovations were planned before an official reopening.
ICA's own expansion page says the purchase was paid for entirely with private money, including a $5 million grant from the Knight Foundation. The museum describes the site as "a beacon of admission-free arts in the Miami Design District." The plans include permanent-collection galleries, a Knight Foundation new-media gallery, classrooms, space for talks and performances, and a digital media lab. Gartenfeld told the Observer that the space would let ICA rotate permanent-collection installations regularly and give it dedicated facilities for digital work, including labs and recording studios.
So far, the building's public life has been short and occasional. ICA's first exhibition listed at the Expansion was Eric Doeringer, July 2 through 31, 2025. Next came Moving Beyond Bars, an exhibition of artworks and writings by incarcerated participants, which ran August 9 through 16, 2025. In between there have been one-day events, most recently the "We Are Miami" Family Fest on October 25, 2026. Measured against those shows, one month and one week, the run coming in December is a different kind of commitment.
What Opens on the Second Floor December 1
Friedrich Kunath: I'll Romanticize This Later runs December 1, 2026, through January 22, 2027, at the ICA Miami Expansion. ICA describes it as the German-born artist's first solo museum exhibition in the United States. The show takes up the building's second floor. It covers paintings, sculpture and installations from across Kunath's career, plus a new interactive digital environment built around his use of lyrics, titles and other text.
According to ICA, the work mixes the visual language of German Romanticism with American pop culture. It returns again and again to the painter Caspar David Friedrich and his Rückenfigur, the figure seen from behind, looking out at a landscape. The digital environment fits the media-lab use ICA laid out when it bought the building.
Opening morning has its own event. At 11 a.m. on December 1, Kunath will talk with Klaus Biesenbach, director of the Neue Nationalgalerie and Berlin Modern, at the Expansion. The talk is presented by DMINTI, the Nassima Foundation and ICA Miami, and it requires an RSVP. The conversation will focus on Friedrich's influence on Kunath and on landscape, melancholy and the sublime. It happens the same day Design Miami opens across the bay and three days before Art Basel's public hours begin.
The Days When ICA's Main Galleries Go Quiet
The main museum at 61 NE 41st Street runs on a separate calendar. Its two current exhibitions both close November 22. One is Manuel Chavajay: Xojowi ja qa tee ruachulew, or Mother Earth Dances. The other is Manoucher Yektai: The Stranger and the Tree. Both opened April 30.
That leaves a gap. From November 23 until Kunath opens on December 1, ICA has no new exhibition announced on its block. If either spring show is still on your list, you have until Sunday, November 22.
The visitor page lists free general admission at the main museum and gallery hours of Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. It strongly recommends advance tickets because walk-ins may be turned away once the museum is at capacity. The Expansion works differently. ICA hasn't published standing hours for 23 NE 41st Street, and pricing has depended on the event. The September 2025 Olga de Amaral symposium there was a free RSVP, while adult tickets for the October 25 Family Fest were $50. Check the event page for the Expansion before you go.
A November Plan, Block by Block
The weeks before Art Week are a good time to see the art already outdoors on these streets. They're also a good time to visit the new shops on NE 40th and 41st before December brings the crowds.
- Saturday, November 7, 11 a.m. to noon. The District's Public Art Tour starts at Palm Court. It covers pieces that have become part of the District's daily backdrop, including Buckminster Fuller's Fly's Eye Dome, Virgil Abloh's Dollar a Gallon and Criola's Interdimensional Portal.
- Any Wednesday through Sunday before November 22. See the Chavajay and Yektai exhibitions at 61 NE 41st Street before they close.
- Saturday, November 21, 11 a.m. to noon. A second Public Art Tour is on the District calendar. Its listing doesn't give a meeting point yet.
- Tuesday, December 1, 11 a.m. The Kunath and Biesenbach conversation at 23 NE 41st Street, followed by the exhibition opening.
Along the way, the retail map has changed since summer. Carolina Herrera opened a flagship of nearly 3,000 square feet at 127 NE 41st Street on August 15. It sells ready-to-wear, eveningwear, handbags, beauty, fragrance and eyewear, a short walk down the same street as both ICA buildings. One block south, Jacquemus opened its first Miami boutique at 157 NE 40th Street. It's a two-story shop of nearly 3,000 square feet that Simon Porte Jacquemus designed with OMA, and it includes art and furniture alongside the clothes. Both stores sit within a few minutes' walk of 23 NE 41st Street.
The Grid Around the Museum Keeps Filling In
The building activity points the same way. On September 30, Sweetbird North broke ground at 95 NE 40th Street, beside Museum Garage. It's an eight-story office-and-retail building designed by Snøhetta, with about 22,500 square feet of retail planned for its first two floors. The District's announcement gives no completion date, so expect construction near the garage this season and no new storefronts from it yet.
The museum that doubled in size on NE 41st Street, the two flagships within a block of it and the new retail building beside Museum Garage all sit within a few short blocks of one another. When the fairs empty out of the Convention Center on December 6, Kunath's exhibition at 23 NE 41st Street still has seven weeks to run, through January 22.
If you're weighing a home or an investment near NE 40th and 41st Streets, and want to understand what a growing museum campus and new retail mean for the blocks around it, Luxury by Monica offers a quiet conversation on your timeline. Schedule a Private Consultation.
