After a 33-year hiatus, Miami Beach architect Robert Swedroe is back to creating collages.

A friend once told architect Robert Swedroe, “You’re going to end up making more money with your art than with your architecture.”

“Bite your tongue, that should never happen,” replied Swedroe, a disciple of Miami Beach architect Morris Lapidus.

More than 50 years after Swedroe began working as an architect and more than 40 years after his first gallery showing for his intricate collages on canvas, his friend was right.

Indeed, Swedroe’s colorful collections of everyday objects — from paint brushes to door handles to costume jewelry — are on display through March at Temple Beth Sholom in Miami Beach, the city that propelled Swedroe’s architectural career.

In 1960, Swedroe walked into the office of Lapidus — the Miami Beach architect who designed the Fontainebleau Hotel and whose work gave much of Collins Avenue its Art Deco look — and talked his way into a job.

Lapidus wasn’t hiring. “He took my portfolio. He disappeared and he came back in about five minutes. He gave me a smirk and said, ‘Come in.’ ’’

Over the years, Swedroe worked as the design architect for a number of Lapidus projects, his first being the Rabbi Alexander S. Gross Hebrew Academy in Miami Beach. He also designed Bal Harbour Tower and Acqualina, the tony resort and spa in Sunny Isles Beach.

While working for Lapidus, Swedroe dabbled in collage art, assembling tiles, pictures and other small objects to compose complete works in the themes of adult and children’s fantasy, as well as religion and sports. He was successful; he says he sold out eight shows in seven years. But his architectural career took precedence and Swedroe shelved his art.

After 13 years with Lapidus, Swedroe started his own Miami Beach firm in 1973. His firm had a breakthrough with the innovation of the direct-entry elevator — elevators in condos that open directly to one’s apartment.

Running the architectural firm left Swedroe little time to pursue his art. In fact, he didn’t make a single collage until 2006, 33 years since his last piece in 1973.

In 2006, when the bottom “slid” out of the real estate market, forcing him to pare his staff from 25 to 4, Swedroe found enough time to work on his art again. He works out of a converted three-car garage in his home on the Isle of Biscaya in Surfside. His home has been featured in Architectural Digest and on Home and Garden Television.

Swedroe collects — and carefully files away — all kinds of objects for his collages, from wine cases to spinning tops to latches to broken jewelry. He finds objects for his three-dimensional artwork from flea markets, antique shows and friends.

“You know the earring you lost that you think you’re going to find? Well, you ain’t gonna find it, so you might as well give me the other one so I can use it,” Swedroe once told a friend.

While Swedroe says he can do a piece in a day, it may take years to find the perfect items to complete a collage.

When he’s done arranging the objects, he applies a glaze with brushes to keep the objects in place on the canvas. He even incorporated his used, stiff brushes into a piece called “Brushstrokes.”

Since resuming his art, Swedroe, 77, has focused mainly on a celestial theme, consisting of images of heavens and galaxies from circular objects.

Swedroe didn’t start out as an architect nor an artist. His first passion was baseball. When he was a freshman at Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx, he was invited to play for a neighboring top-ranked church baseball team, St. Thomas Aquinas. To play, Swedroe was required to be a member of the church — being Jewish he couldn’t join — so he played under an alias: Ralph DeSantis. He played for four years as a first baseman.

“It was kind of strange, being Jewish,’’ he said. “But those were wonderful times.’’

To avoid homework, Swedroe took mostly drafting and art classes, freeing up the afternoon for baseball practice.

When he graduated, his guidance counselor laughed at his grades and told him he’d have a tough time getting into a trade school. Swedroe, however, had enough talent to win the prestigious St. Gaudin’s Medal of Art, which led him to the architecture school at Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

From there he earned a scholarship to complete a master’s degree from the Yale School of Architecture, where he studied under Paul Rudolph, the architect known for his work with the Tuskegee Institute and for his design of the Yale Art and Architecture Building.

Swedroe’s architectural work has included luxury high rises, single-family homes, resorts and religious buildings.

His art work also has good company. Swedroe’s collages have been displayed alongside works by Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol.

Said Swedroe: “It always freaks me out, because I’m an unknown artist.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/06/2627765/miami-beach-architect-returns.h...