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After a nonstop week of art fairs, celebratory dinners, and late-night revelry, the crowds have cleared from Miami Beach. So what caught our attention? The answer, in a word, is tons. At the main attraction, Art Basel Miami Beach, some 250 established and emerging galleries showed works by more than 2,000 artists in total, resulting in a diverse, inspiring, and at times, yes, overwhelming array. Wandering a brightly lit convention center for hours can make everything start to blur together, so it’s a mark of high quality that so much stood out—from Salon 94’s display of kinetic sculptures by Jon Kessler to Laura Owens’s colorful, abstract paintings exhibited by Gavin Brown to Mai-Thu Perret’s acrylic confections on carpet at David Kordansky Gallery.

Sales, by many accounts, proved buoyant. At Cheim & Read’s booth, a large-scale, mixed-media piece by Barry McGee sold within ten minutes, while a series of vibrant paintings by Tal R were snatched up one by one over the course of the fair. And at Sperone Westwater, pieces by Wim Delvoye, Evan Penny, and Ali Banisadr were all spoken for by opening day’s end.

Of course, there were equally wondrous things to behold outside the venue, whether at the other fairs (Pulse, NADA, and Design Miami among them) or numerous satellite happenings. The Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, where Sotheby’s and Gagosian hosted a brunch on Tuesday, has temporarily installed four monumental sculptures by John Chamberlain alongside lanterns by Jorge Pardo and—as part of the park’s inaugural design exhibition—eight benches curated by Manhattan dealer Cristina Grajales.

It’s not every day that you get to sit on a work of art and certainly not often that you get to drink inside one, as was the case at Güiro, a beachside bar pavilion created by the Havana-and-Madrid-based collective Los Carpinteros. Fans of that structure would no doubt also marvel at the new Miami Art Museum designed by Herzog & de Meuron, currently under construction across the causeway at Bicentennial Park.

On Saturday morning, architect Jacques Herzog led a select group on a hardhat tour of the site. “We’ve tried to break down the idea of the museum into smaller entities that are right in scale and remindful of what is a gallery, what is a place for art, rather than this big one mass,” he said. A thoughtful conglomeration of concrete forms with deep overhangs and trellislike extensions, the structure was reminiscent, in its unfinished state, of his firm’s beloved local landmark, the 1111 Lincoln Road parking garage.

That complex served as a breezy backdrop to outerwear company Moncler’s 60th anniversary celebration on Friday evening, where architect David Adjaye could be seen chatting up Pharrell Williams. On any given night there were so many parties that one could barely keep track of them all, let alone attend each one. One moment you’re at the home of collector George Lindemann, celebrating designer Wendell Castle’s 80th birthday alongside decorator Jamie Drake, photographer Todd Eberle, and dealer Suzanne Demisch, and the next thing you know, you’re at Soho Beach House, toasting French fashion label Chloé. Architectural Digest’s own soiree at the AD Oasis—a VIP lounge conceived by decorator Mark Cunningham on the grounds of the Raleigh Hotel—offered a chic place to unwind and imbibe. Spotted mingling were designers Suzanne Kasler, John Barman, and Philip Gorrivan, in addition to artist Ryan Trecartin and actor Stephen Dorff. “It’s more intense than any film festival,” said Dorff of the scene overall. “I saw great stuff but my brain is tired.”

Ours too.

Click here to see all the stylesetters and celebrities that were spotted at the AD Oasis.