Designing the Seaside: Architecture, Society and Nature

The notion of taking a seaside holiday has only existed since the 18th 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 has 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 18th 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 defines 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 also 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. Featuring informative and often entertaining photographs, architectural drawings, guidebooks, postcards and railway and publicity posters, this book provides a thoroughly readable as well as visually fascinating account of changing attitudes to holiday-making and its setting. Gray explores questions of taste, fashion, class and gender and particularly how the seaside became a hotbed for issues of morality and sexuality – from bathing machines to beauty pageants.

About the Author :
Fred Gray is Emeritus Professor of Continuing Education at the University of Sussex. He is the author of Designing the Seaside: Architecture, Society and Nature (Reaktion, 2006).

Review :
"Designing the Seaside manages to be both scholarly and colourful and offers a timely history of seaside art and architecture, from Brighton Pier and beach huts in Nice to a derelict resort complex in the Baltic, to the bizarre Palm islands of Dubai."--London Evening Standard "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 issue of morality, where people took their sauce on a postcard as often as with their fish and chips."--Daily Telegraph "Fred Gray''s illuminating study of the history of seaside architecture shows what a profound influence many of the innovations born on British coasts have had on Western holiday ideals . . . his account is enlivened by the wealth of pictorial evidence he has gathered. The fascinating photos of past and present resorts . . . show changing attitudes to holidaymaking and reveal the class and gender splits at work (or play) through the ages."--Metro London ""Designing the Seaside" takes a detailed look at the history and architecture of the seaside resort over three centuries, from genteel first forays with the bathing machine to perceived hotbeds of sexual immorality. The pictures offer a history of their own."--"The Independent""" "A wonderful assembly of archive material, ephemera, and modern photography."--"Architects'' Journal""" "" -- Gillian Darley "Architects' Journal" (09/11/2006) "Almost definitive. . . . Sumptuous."--"The Times" "Insightful. . . . A wonderful collection of colourful illustrations from resorts around the world. . . . Neglect of the seaside has been the norm in academic and publishing circles, so Fred Gray''s survey of the worldwide seaside environment is very welcome." -- Lynn Pearson "Building Design" (08/25/2006) "Like all good books it is about more than it says on the cover, and combines a number of histories in a readable whole."--"Architecture Today""" "The plentiful illustrations allow us to follow the weird and wonderful world of seaside fashion through the ages . . . With chapters on everything from bath huts to boardwalks, this really is your one-stop ride to the seaside." -- Moira Lascelles "RIBA Journal" (09/01/2006) "The 440 images alone are worth the price. It''s a fascinating, sometimes embarrassing, gallery of how we once saw ourselves, or at least how the British did." -- Toni Salama "Chicago Tribune" (10/29/2006) "This is a splendid book, solid, substantial, and beautifully illustrated in a variety of idioms, and a delight to read and peruse. . . . Its thematic coverage of building types and aesthetics in cultural context is impeccable, ranging from the promenade to the lido, the grand hotel to the converted railway carriage. . . . This is essentially a work of architectural, design, environmental, and (implicitly) planning history. Attitudes to the natural world, its imagining, depiction, conservation, and exploitation, are rightly central to the author''s concerns. . . . The book has direct value for those who seek to understand contemporary trends in tourism. . . . It should be required reading far beyond its ostensible core constituency among design historians." -- John Walton "Annals of Tourism Research" (09/01/2007) "Almost definitive. . . . Sumptuous."--The Times    "Designing the Seaside takes a detailed look at the history and architecture of the seaside resort over three centuries, from genteel first forays with the bathing machine to perceived hotbeds of sexual immorality. The pictures offer a history of their own."--The Independent    "The 440 images alone are worth the price. It's a fascinating, sometimes embarrassing, gallery of how we once saw ourselves, or at least how the British did." "Almost definitive. . . . Sumptuous."--The Times