The coast is where architects go to play. In the Thirties the Modernists gave us lidos, proms and pavilions. And now a new boom is under way.


The coast is where architects go to play. In the Thirties the Modernists gave us lidos, proms and pavilions. And now a new boom is under way.
The Times
At 2pm, half an hour away from taking my wedding vows downstairs on the, ahem, “sun” terrace two months ago, I was standing on the top floor of the Midland Hotel in Morecambe with a furrowed brow as I admired the thick fug of driving rain hammering up the bay from Ireland. The reason we picked the Midland to get married in — other than our Lancastrian families and a hardwired, hare-brained love of the British seaside and 1930s Modernism — was Morecambe’s famous views of the bay and the Lake District (now, alas, cloaked under drizzle and slate-grey clouds). Well, what do you expect when you get married on the prom at Morecambe in May? Fools. Half an hour later, though, I was sweltering in a three-piece wool suit under blazing sun that would put Barbados in the shade.

And that, my friends, is what the British seaside is all about — cheery optimism. Yes, it’s pouring with rain, but come sit with me under a prom shelter with a candy floss and it’ll pass. It’s about staring out through steamed-up windows to a dark sea thrashed with driving rain and wind, with nothing but hot milky tea for comfort.

That’s why it suits Modernist architecture. Not all Modernist architecture, I’ll grant you. Not the grungy brutalist type, all rough concrete and attitude. Much as I love a spot of brutalism in the right place, I can’t quite bring myself to forgive Margate’s councillors for building Arlington House in the Sixties, a grizzled high-rise that looks better suited to Alphaville than Turner’s beloved retreat. No, it suits Thirties Modernism best, the white-walled, crisp-suited, nautical kind like the Midland, all Hercule Poirot and gin fizzes on the veranda.