The World Congress on Art Deco® is held under the auspices of the International Coalition of Art Deco Societies (ICADS).
Miami Design Preservation League (MDPL) founder Barbara Baer Capitman created the concept for the World Congress on Art Deco® in 1989. In January 1990 she conducted an ‘organizing symposium’ to insure the planned inauguration and launch of a series of such World Congresses. Barbara died in 1990. MDPL hosted the first World Congress on Art Deco® in Miami Beach, Florida in January 1991 during the annual Art Deco Weekend®. This was appropriate since Miami Beach was the first area in the world to recognise and take steps to protect a Twentieth Century historic district with Art Deco as the hallmark style.
The response to the World Congress was so enthusiastic that MDPL licensed it as a biannual event giving the International Coalition of Art Deco Societies (ICADS) the authority to vote on future sites for the Congresses.
The next World Congress on Art Deco will be hosted by Cleveland, OH, USA in May, 2017.