In their architectural series, this newest volume is a follow-on book to the Press's earlier and more comprehensive work, Shanghai Art Deco, published in 2007. In this latest volume the two centers for Art Deco architecture, Miami Beach on the southern coast of Florida in the USA, and Shanghai, a former treaty port on China's east coast, are contrasted through a series of fifty photographs of each by photographer Deke Erh (Er Dongqiang).

In this joint volume we see Shanghai's infinite variety -- and almost every permutation -- of the Art Deco style, including some uniquely Chinese versions. The Shanghai images of commecial, residential and entertainment venues reflect their heavy tenancy and hint at the varied, busy, often crowded life within the walls. The Miami Beach photos reveal a more ordered world of uncrowded streets and immaculately maintained buildings in a palette of ice-cream colors. Whereas Shanghai's streets reveal a bustling business-oriented city, Miami Beach's are more laid back, with suntanned and casually clad strollers heading for the beach. Both scripts are played out against a backdrop of stunning Art Deco and Streamline Modern architecture.

The images in both halves of the book, with Shanghai leading off, are supplemented by evocative and informative narratives by two writers: Tess Johnston of Shanghai and Clotilde Luce of Miami Beach. Johnston's concise captions seek to capture the aura of the earlier era, while Luce's provide a mini-tutorial on Art Deco's many and varied features, most far better preserved -- and more vividly -- than those in a city that does not put a premium on architectural preservation. With the contrasting scenes of the two cities' Art Deco buildings, Miami Beach can well serve as an example to the city of Shanghai on how the preservation of the old can enrich a 21st century city, both esthetically and financially.