architecture on the seaside

The evolution of seaside architecture

by Cheryl Critchley on May 7, 2009

On a sunny spring day, it's easy to re-imagine Eastbourne as the 19th century Empress of Watering Places it once was. That common, sepia-tinted perception has not helped this town of conferences and coach tours to meet the 21st century confidently under the jutting shoulder of Beachy Head. But art will.

The new £8.6m Towner Gallery, designed by Rick Mather Architects, ushers in what may become a Tate St Ives effect in a setting of significance to 20th-century British modern art. There is one key difference: as a gallery, the Towner is superior to Tate's operationally constipated Cornish outstation.

The Towner is not only significant to Eastbourne. It's a sign of big changes in the cultural offers of a string of towns along the south coasts of Sussex and Kent – changes led by bold architectural interventions. Brighton may be Clerkenwell-on-Sea, but the white noise of its cultural hegemony is no longer quite so deafening. The cultural gravities...Read More >>