After the war, the city seemed to hold the bayfront in low regard. The Miami River, where it cuts into the bay in downtown Miami, was a foul graveyard of rusting hulks and repair shops. Public access to the bay was limited. The new high-rise condominiums and office buildings have walled off the bay south of the downtown section. And at night, when the city empties out, Bayfront Park is taken over by groups of men who gather beneath the lush banyan trees to drink bottles of wine in paper bags.

''Miami in the past has been a provincial town dedicated to outside visitors and real estate booms,'' Mayor Ferre said. ''Part of that provincialism is the fight between the neighborhoods and the downtown interests, and that's the heart of the fight now over the library. The Noguchi concept gives us a chance to marry the bay and downtown, and it will be a mark of excellence for Miami.''

Central to the Noguchi plan is this ''wedding'' of downtown and park. The plan calls for a promenade 400 feet long and 60 feet wide to cross Biscayne Boulevard, which separates the park from the office buildings facing the bay, giving pedestrians easy access to the park at Flagler Street and Biscayne Boulevard.

The library, which has a marble exterior, sits in the park at this intersection. Those who want the library removed say it would not only obstruct the promenade, but would also cut lines of vision to a monumental fountain measuring 170 feet in diameter and set in a piazza 300 feet wide.

Under the Noguchi plan, the library building will be torn down and the central library will be re-established in an existing building at a civic complex several blocks away.

'Tower of Light' Is Planned

The Noguchi redesign of the park also calls for the placement of his sculptored ''Tower of Light,'' a 90-foot-high blending of art and technology that will brilliantly illuminate the sky at night with a combination of lighting systems, including lasers.

There will also be an amphitheater with up to 20,000 seats, rock gardens and secret pools, extensive plantings of subtropical vegetation to augment the palms and other trees already there, and a 1,650-foot long pedestrian esplanade along the bay itself.