Sunday 14 February 2010

Positive 8: Bexhill-On-Sea; Lost Modernism

Coming across the De La Warr Pavilion (by Eric Mendelsohn) in Bexhill-On-Sea is, and one imagines always has been for visitors to the town, startling. The pavilion has, in the best traditions of the International Style, muscled in on a pleasing British seaside vernacular with little apparent considerations to its context.

However, it gives those who constantly plea for a contextual architecture something to think about. The building sits uneasily amongst onion-domed arcades and apartments (see below), but to whose detriment?

 Apartments. Bexhill. Feb. 10.


The stylistic unease that the opposing buildings generate, does not diminish our enjoyment of either. For they are both joyous in their own manner.

 Pavilion. Bexhill. Feb. 10.

I do not mean to suggest that buildings should always be built in disregard of their context, but certainly stylistic continuity as is so wonderfully disregarded here, need not be a driver for designers. Far more pressing is the need to create buildings that fulfill functions for the community, work well, and that are pleasing to those that inhabit them and the society as a whole. These buildings, it seems, fulfill all of these objectives (ignoring the locals objections to both buildings' programmatic problems).

On a somewhat tangential note, particular wonder must be expressed at the wonderful stair of the pavilion. Jutting out of the Modern box, in a grand dialogue with the English channel (no Grimshaw-like pirate ships for Mendelsohn) the stair spirals around a sculptural light fitting. Any architect past or present would love to have something this eloquent to their name, contextual or no.
 
Pavilion stair. Bexhill. Feb. 10.



Pavilion light. Bexhill. Feb. 10