Success and innovation are things that Craig Robins, President of Dacra Development, is right at home with. He pioneered the rebirth of South Beach with the restoration and preservation of Art Deco landmarks, then did the same with the Design District, injecting life into blighted areas which are now worldwide destinations. Robins is a respected art collector and philanthropist who, with his girlfriend Ambra Medda, has formed a powerful alliance, not only on a personal level but on the worldwide stage of design. Medda and Robins put together Design Miami, of which Medda is director, and it debuted to rave reviews just down the road from Art Basel in 2OO5. As a result of his passion and involvement with the art and design community, he recently received the 2OO6 Design Patron Award from the Smithsonian Institutions Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

DO: What was going through your mind when you got the Design Patron award?
CR: I didn't calculate or expect how unbelievable it would be. Our nation's museum had decided to give me a national award presented by the First Lady at the White House. I've been to the White House as a tourist, but now being invited as a guest was exciting and a lot of fun. It made me feel proud about what I've done. I've always done it with the idea of building an important sense of community and making the neighborhood I'm working in more dynamic. So to get an award for what I consider to be my job was surreal.

DO: When did you realize that design was art unto itself?
CR: Art was something I became interested in in my childhood. My interest in architecture and design grew during my college years in Barcelona. Then working in South Beach I began to process those earlier influences into a business, which was about design, style, architecture and art?a big part of which was already there.

DO: You were shining a light on it and dusting it off.
CR: At the beginning it was unbelievable to me that it was disregarded. Conventional wisdom was nothing could be done about the old buildings on South Beach. Ironically it gave life to a new Miami. No individual or community should disregard its heritage.
DO: Tell me about Ambra.

CR: When we met a couple of years ago. I found her sparkly, intelligent and fearless. She intrigued me as a person.
DO: How did you start collecting design?

CR: After attending the Milan Furniture Fair, the most important commercial show in the world, I wanted to incorporate design into my life. But I was looking at design more as fashion instead of art. There's a very clear vision on my part that art is collectible and design was something you enjoyed and used but no matter how much I loved it, it wasn't something I wanted to have in my collection.

DO: What turned you around?
CR: Working with the 15 best design dealers and galleries in the world I realized while very different, art and design are on the same level and can be treated in the same way when it comes to collecting.

DO: How did Design Miami come about?
CR: Sam Keller, director of Art Basel, Ambra and I were with three big design dealers in Venice at the Hotel Monaco watching the sunset and the gondolas go by and we decided to make it happen. Ambra, as director, supervises in the same spirit as Basel. There's a rigorous selection process with a limited selection of the very best in the world. Ambra has a selection committee from the universe of design who make recommendations. The design world is expanding very quickly.

DO: And with South Beach the world discovered us?
CR: Yes. It was originally about fashion and entertainment. Art Basel helped to galvanize us as a cultural community. The experience of Art Basel reminds me in many ways of the early experiences of South Beach which was a movement. Art Basel is a new iteration that dramatically advances that equation. That part is more like a movement.

DO: Tell me about your collecting now.
CR: Three or four years ago my friend George Lindemann was talking to me about collecting design and I didn't get it. I couldn't understand why he was investing time and money in collecting design. I was more of a consumer than a collector.

DO: What sets the two apart?
CR: As it turns out he was right. Art is something that as a collector I think of building a cohesive body of work. Fashion is something I like and admire but I buy to use?I don't keep a jacket or a shirt and build a collection. Design is something in between. Never a precise analogy but I shifted to see design on the same level as art.