Designing the Seaside: Architecture, Society and Nature
Author(s): Fred Gray (Author)
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Publication Date: 2 Jun. 2009
Edition: illustrated edition
Language: English
Print length: 400 pages
ISBN-10: 1861894406
ISBN-13: 9781861894403
Book Description
The notion of taking a seaside holiday has only existed since the eighteenth century, when it was slowly becoming accepted that fresh air and sea water are good for health. Since then, a vast array of seaside resorts to suit all budgets have been developed in all areas of the world along with fairgrounds, piers, holiday camps, boardwalks, swimming pools and casinos. In addition, the seaside has seen the development of a variety of distinctive architectures, from the smallest beach hut to the grandest of hotels. In Designing the Seaside, Fred Gray provides a history of seaside architecture from the eighteenth century to the present day. He covers the formal and informal design processes involved in major buildings as well as ephemeral structures from piers and pavilions to resort parks and open spaces to shops selling candy floss.While the book’s chief focus is Britain, it also contains numerous examples from the USA, Europe and the Far East. Seaside architecture often assumes iconic cultural status that define either specific resorts (the Blackpool Tower, the Royal Pavilion in Brighton) or the nature of a holiday by the coast (the pier and holiday camp). The development of the seaside has involved transforming existing landscapes. What were once perceived as marginal or valueless sites – cliffs, sand dunes and marsh – were reclaimed for resorts and often developed into good quality, even exotic, towns. With the aid of photographs, architectural drawings, guidebooks, postcards, and railway and publicity posters, this book explores and delineates changing attitudes to holidaymaking and its setting. Gray looks at questions of taste, fashion, class and gender and particularly how the seaside became a hotbed (from bathing machines to beauty pageants) for issues of morality and sexuality.
Editorial Reviews
Review
‘Filled with photographs, architectural drawings, guidebooks, postcards and posters, this book explores changing attitudes to holidays and their settings. Taste, fashion and class make an appearance and there is an exploration of how the seaside became a hotbed for issues of morality, where people took their sauce on a postcard as often as with their fish and chips.’ –Daily Telegraph
‘This is a splendid book, solid, substantial, and beautfully illustrated in a variety of idioms, and a delight to read and peruse … It examines what is distinctively ”seaside” about the architecture, design, and ambience of the Western beach resorts, and it does so through themed historical analyses covering the two and a half centuries since the invention of the modern seaside holiday.’ –Annals of Tourism Research
‘This instructive, enjoyable, and beautifully presented book is a must for anyone interested in the evolution of the material fabric of the seaside resort. The focus is the author’s own stamping ground of Brighton and the English south coast, but he uses this as a base from which to explore other resorts in Britain, and to make much more than passing allusions to the development of the seaside throughout the western world.’ –Modernism/Modernity
About the Author
Fred Gray is Professor of Continuing Education at the University of Sussex.
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