SIX SEASIDE LITHOGRAPHS :IV
This is the fourth of a summer series of lithographs of the Kent and Sussex seaside by Alan Powers, entitled Views of the South Coast. The series, which has eight prints in all, has been commissioned by the Spectator and is available for sale as a signed limited edition of 300. Each cased set including text by Alan Powers costs £49.50 including post, packing and VAT. Payment by credit card or cheque (made payable to the Spectator) is accepted. Orders should be sent to: The Spectator Print Offer, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL.
Bexhill-on-Sea — the De La Warr Pavilion
BEXHILL was a latecomer among the resorts. Old Bexhill can still be found uphill at the back of the station, but the florid red brick of its progeny betrays the 1880s when the local land- owner, Lord De La Warr, developed his property. Along the beach are single-storey blocks with onion domes. Were they once Turkish baths?
The attraction for architectural pil- grims is the De La Warr Pavilion, named after the successor peer who as a go-ahead mayor organised an architectural competition in 1933 for a theatre, library and social centre. He paid for the building too.
The architects selected were Erich Mendelsohn, lately arrived from Ger- many, and his Anglo-Russian partner Serge Chermayeff. Bexhill is marked by a large pin on the map of modern- ism, since most of Mendelsohn's ear- lier work has been lost and he was, in a quiet way, a better architect than some of his vaunted contemporaries.
The pavilion is architecture of enter- tainment, however austere. Contour and transparency combine in the main staircase, spiralling up behind the sun- decks. Was everyone in the Thirties obsessed by sun and sea? 'The sun is one of our emotive nouns,' said Au- den, and it is mostly survivors from his era who gather now on the terraces to hear a Wednesday concert on the electric organ. When it comes to Fid- dler on the Roof they are requested to 'sing along in nice Jewish voices' but none of them do.
Inside the pavilion, the period effect has been modified, to say the least, although an original mural by Wads- worth survives, much retouched. Sir Charles Reilly called the pavilion 'a revelation from another planet in the rococo redness of that terrible town'. That was the prejudice of his genera- tion. The prejudice of ours is that we like the pavilion and the town too.
Alan Powers
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