This dissertation reconstructs and investigates the origins of the Pérez Art Museum Miami. In 2013, the museum re-opened in a new, county-funded building to great acclaim and international attention, but the museum’s origins in the 1970s have been largely forgotten. A result of the 1972 “Decade of Progress” bond vote by county taxpayers that allocated funds to build a new art museum, the museum opened as the Center for the Fine Arts in 1983 as a non-collecting institution dedicated to displaying traveling exhibitions. The new institution represented the combined efforts of local government, business, and art to construct not only a place in which to view art but also as part of an overall plan to create a great metropolitan area. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection