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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
Among the distinguishing architectural features of the red-brick seaside town of Bexhill, East Sussex, is the startling white form of the De La Warr Pavilion (Fig. 1). It is a building of some significance, partly because it represents the aspirations of British proponents of modern architecture in the 1930s in its appearance, its use of advanced constructional techniques (it was one of the first all-welded steel framed buildings in Britain) and its social function as an entertainment centre which aimed to provide amusement and simultaneously improve people’s mental and physical fitness. The architects of the Pavilion, Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff, had formed their partnership in 1933 when Mendelsohn had been forced to leave Berlin and emigrate to Britain; subsequently they triumphed in an open competition of 230 entries which provides a fascinating commentary on the ideological debate among British architects of the time, not least because of the architectural range represented by the designs which failed to win an award.
1 The Bexhill Pavilion features extensively in the literature on Mendelsohn and Chermayeff. For a recent publication on it see Erich Mendelsohn, 1887–1953, Catalogue of a Touring Exhibition organized by Modern British Architecture (1987), which contains ‘The story of the De La Warr Pavilion’, by Jeremy Brook (pp. 22–23). See also Glancey, Jonathan and Eddy, David Hamilton, ‘Mendelsohn [and] Chermayeff all at sea’, RIBA Joumal, vol. 92, no. 9 (September 1985), 30–36 Google Scholar, which includes colour photographs by Martin Charles. For a different perspective see Benton, Tim, ‘The De La Warr Pavilion. A type for the 1930s’, in Leisure in the 20th Century. Fourteen Papers given at the 2nd Conference on 20th-century Design History (London: Design Council Publications, 1977), pp. 72–80 Google Scholar. The construction of the Pavilion will be the subject of a forthcoming article by Russell Stevens.
2 The partnership was short-lived, lasting only three years (1933–36). Apart from the De La Warr Pavilion, their projects included the Nimmo House in Chalfont St Giles (1935), the Cohen House in Chelsea (1936), and unexecuted designs for an hotel in Southsea (1935) and for housing in White City, London (1935)- In 1933 Chermayeff (born 1900) was only at the start of his architectural career, in which he had no formal training, while Mendelsohn (1887–1953) was at the peak of his creative talent and an acknowledged leader of the Modern Movement. Mendelsohn’s influence clearly dominated the practice; the De La Warr Pavilion, certainly in its early stages, was predominantly designed by him. This is confirmed by Birkin Haward, Sr, in a letter to Russell Stevens, 4 August 1988; Mr Haward was an assistant in the practice during the development work on the pavilion in 1934, as he describes in his recollections in Erich Mendelsohn, 1887–1953 (1987), pp. 71–72. On pp. 59–67 of the same catalogue Barbara Tilson writes on ‘Serge Chermayeff and the Mendelsohn/Chermayeff Partnership’. Cher-mayeffs own observations on the period are in ‘An Explosive Revolution’, The Architectural Review, 166 (November 1967), p. 294.
3 Accounts of the life of the Rt Hon. Herbrand Edward Dundonald Brassey Sackville, ninth Earl De La Warr, are given in his obituary in The Times, 29 January 1976, p. 16, and in Who Was Who, 1971–80 (London, 1981), p. 208.
4 ‘The Next Mayor’, Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, 6 August 1932, p. 7.
5 ‘The Growth of Bexhill — From Village to Resort: De La Warr Trustees and Mr John Webb’s Contract’, Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, 19 March 1966, p. 2.
6 Obituary, The Times, 29 January 1976, p. 16. Among De La Warr’s properties in Bexhill was the Cooden Beach Hotel, and this fact undoubtedly aligned him in the town with those who wished to promote the Pavilion for commercial reasons, although the issue does not appear to have caused any comment in the local press.
7 Elleray, D. Robert, Worthing. A Pictorial History (London, 1977), p. 42.Google Scholar
8 In April 1923 a meeting of the Commercial Association had passed a resolution that such a hall was an urgent necessity. ‘The Growth of Bexhill — From Village to Resort: Entertainment Hall Schemes and the Pavilion Result’, Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, 30 September 1967, p. 2.
9 Ibid.
10 The Borough of Bexhill General Development Plan: ‘Formal Resolution to Council to Adopt Scheme, 28 February 1927’, signed by N. Taylor, Clerk of the Local Authority, 4 April 1927. Public Records Office, Kew, File SO1B1.
11 Adams, Thompson and Fry, Town Planning Consultants, ‘Borough of Bexhill General Development Plan, 1930’, British Architectural Library, RIBA, S.R. 711.4 (42.258).
12 Ibid., p. 19.
13 Ibid.
14 Conversation between Russell Stevens and William Crabtree, 26 August 1988.
15 ‘Entertainments Hall Schemes and Pavilion Results’, Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, 30 September 1967, p. 2. An elevation of the scheme is reproduced here.
16 Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, 24 September 1932, p. 3.
17 The Times, 19 November 1932, p. 6.
18 Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, 27 May 1933, p. 3.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 In a speech at the laying of the foundation stone of the building (on 6 May 1935) De La Warr was to describe it as a venture ‘which is part of a great national movement, virtually to found a new industry — the industry of giving that relaxation, that pleasure, that culture, which hitherto the gloom and dreariness of British resorts have driven our countrymen to seek in foreign lands’. See The Architectural Review, 80 (July 1936), pp. 7–28 [p. 23].
22 Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, 24 February 1934, p. 4.
23 For a biography of T. S. Tait see, e.g., the entry on ‘Tait, Thomas Smith’ in Lever, Jill, Editor, Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects, vol. T-Z (London, 1984), p. 9.Google Scholar
24 Conversation between Russell Stevens and William Crabtree, 26 August 1988. Crabtree recalls that during the early 1930s he had considered entering many competitions, including that for Guildford Cathedral (1932), but none of these had as attractive a brief as that for the Bexhill Pavilion. Furthermore he had great faith that with Tait as assessor new ideas would be fairly received.
25 Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 41 (25 November 1933), p. 103.
26 ‘Corporation of Bexhill. Architectural Competition for proposed Entertainment Hall, Coastguard Site. Conditions and Instructions to Competing Architects, 1933’. Unpublished document, British Architectural Library, RIBA, Manuscripts and Archives Collection, Ref. HiO/79/3.
27 ‘Borough of Bexhill, Coastguard Site Competition. Further Information for Competing Architects, October 1933’. Unpublished document, British Architectural Library, RIBA, Manuscripts and Archives Collection, Ref.HiO/79/3.
28 The site plan issued with the conditions of entry was reproduced in the Architect and Building News, 135 (15 September 1933), p. 291, but failed to show the hotels which abutted the site. Although this mistake was later corrected in a more detailed plan published in the Architect and Building News, 136 (20 October 1933), p. 67, it may explain why the planning of some of the schemes (such as Haswell and Shepherd’s) appears to ignore them.
29 ‘List of questions and answers addressed to the competition promoters’, Unpublished document, undated, British Architectural Library, RIBA, Manuscripts and Archives Collection, Ref. HiO/79/3.
30 See above n. 26.
31 ‘Bexhill Entertainments Hall Competition. An Abstract of the Conditions, Architect and Building News, 135 (15 September 1933), p. 291; ‘Bexhill Entertainments Hall Competition. The Conditions Reviewed and Explained’, Architect and Buiding News (22 September 1933), pp. 319–20; ‘Bexhill Entertainments Hall Competition. Some Points in Planning’, Architect and Building News, 135 (29 September 1933), pp. 351–52; ‘Bexhill Entertainments Hall Competition. Further Points in Planning’, Architect and Building News, 136 (6 October 1933), pp. 5–6; ‘Bexhill Entertainments Hall Competition. Further Points in Planning’, Architect and Building News, 136 (13 October 1933), pp. 36–37.
32 ‘Bexhill Entertainments Hall: The Conditions Reviewed’, The Architects’ Journal, 78 (28 September 1933), pp. 380–83.
33 Ibid., p. 380.
34 Wesley Dougill in a letter published in The Architects’ Journal, 79 (22 February 1934), p. 278.
35 ‘Bexhill Competition Reviewed’, Architect and Building News, 137 (9 February 1934), pp. 196–97 [p. 196].
36 ‘The Bexhill Competition’, The Architects’ Journal, 79 (8 February 1934), pp. 205–23 [p. 205].
37 ‘Bexhill Entertainments Hall: The Conditions Reviewed’. The Architects’ Journal, 78 (28 September 1933), pp. 380–83 [p. 380].
38 ‘The Bexhill Competition’, The Architects’Journal, 79 (8 February 1934), pp. 205–23 [p. 208].
39 The Builder, 146 (23 February 1934), p. 323.
40 ‘The Bexhill Competition’, The Architects’ Journal, 79 (8 February 1934), pp. 205–23 [p. 205].
41 Architect and Building News, 137 (9 February 1934), p. 196.
42 The Royal Corinthian Yacht Club (1931) is one of the most successful early modernist buildings in Britain. Extensively published in British architectural journals (e.g. the Architect and Building News, 77 (4 September 1931), p. 265) it was also the only British work to be illustrated in Hitchcock and Johnson’s The International Style, first published in 1932.
43 ‘Bexhill Competition’, The Architectural Association Journal, 49 (March 1934), pp. 332–34.
44 ‘Bexhill Competition Reviewed’, Architect and Building News, 137 (9 February 1934), pp. 196–97 [p. 196].
45 Oliver Hill, letter to B. L. Hurst, Esq., 6 November 1933. British Architectural Library, RIBA, Manuscripts and Archives Collection, Ref. Hio/79/3.
46 ‘The Architecture of Oliver Hill’, Architectural Design, Profile 24: Britain in the Thirties (1979), 30–41 [p. 32].
47 For Oliver Hill see recently Powers, Alan, Oliver Hill. Architect and Lover of Life (1887–1968) (London, 1989).Google Scholar
48 Oliver Hill, letter to B. L. Hurst, Esq., 6 November 1933. British Architectural Library, RIBA, Manuscripts and Archives Collection, Ref. HiO/79/3.
49 Typewritten report accompanying Oliver Hill’s entry. British Architectural Library, RIBA, Manuscripts and Archives Collection, Ref. HiO/79/3.
50 Fry was later to express his debt to the work of S ven Markelius, and in particular his Helsingborg concert hall, in a speech at the RIBA in London. See ‘Presentation of the Royal Gold Medal for 1962 to Professor Sven Markelius’, Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 69 (May 1962), pp. 166–69 [p. 167].
51 ‘A Small-town Concert Hall’, The Architectural Review, 73 (June 1933), pp. 246–51.
52 ‘The Bexhill Competition’, The Architects’ Journal, 79 (8 February 1934), pp. 205–23 [p. 212].
53 Ibid., p. 205.
54 ‘An Entertainments Hall. Winning Design for Bexhill-on-Sea’, The Times, 19 February 1934, p. 15.
55 ‘Architecture of Our Times’, transcript of lecture by Erich Mendelsohn, The Architectural Association Journal, 46 (June 1930), pp. 4–22 [p. 16].
56 The Architects’ Journal, 79 (8 February 1934), p. 211.
57 The Builder, 146 (23 February 1934), p. 323.
58 The Architects’Journal, 79 (8 February 1934), p. 208.
59 Ibid., p. 206.
60 See ibid., pp. 214–17, which gives the report which Mendelsohn and Chermayeff submitted with their entry and thoroughly explains their planning solution and intentions. There are eight drawings of Bexhill by Mendelsohn and his assistants in the RIBA Drawings Collection in London: Nos U18/65.1-3 were presented by Mrs Louise Mendelsohn in 1955 and are listed in Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects, vol. L-N, edited by Jill Lever (1973), p. 69; and Nos X5/B/1-5, were presented by Birkin Haward, Sr, in 1983, and described by him in a handwritten memorandum of February 1983. Mendelsohn’s chief assistant was Hannes Schreiner (who had come to England with Mendelsohn from Berlin) and some of the drawings were by him, John Cunningham, and Birkin Haward, Sr. Also at the RIBA Drawings Collection is a copy of the ‘Listing of Archive Contents. Work of Eric Mendelsohn’ of 1969 which gives the material sold by Mrs Mendelsohn to the Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen Preusshischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. The ‘Catalog of Sketches’ lists the 22 drawings of Bexhill by Mendelsohn now in Berlin; twenty of these appear to concern the development of the design after the competition, and two to the later proposal for a cinema and hotel. See recent catalogue entries 256–61 in S. Achenbach, editor, Erich Mendelsohn (1887–1953). Ideen, Bauten, Projekte, Exhibition Catalogue, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Berlin, 1987). Dr Achenbach kindly answered our queries, and Dr Iain Boyd White examined these drawings for us. An interior view by Chermayeff of the auditorium at the De La Warr Pavilion is in the RIBA Drawings Collection, presented by the architect in 1967. See Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the RIBA, vol. C-F (1972), p. 23. According to Janet Parks, Curator of Drawings, who kindly responded to our queries, there is no Bexhill material in the Chermayeff collection at the Avery Library at Columbia University, though it should be added that cataloguing is not yet complete.
61 Architect and Building News, 137 (9 February 1934), p. 196.
62 The Architects’ Journal, 79 (8 February 1934), p. 205.
63 ‘The Bexhill Entertainments Hall Competition’, The Builder, 146 (9 February 1934), p. 242.
64 The Architects’ Journal, 79 (8 February 1934), p. 197.
65 Ibid.
66 The Architects’ Journal, 79 (15 February 1934), p. 244.
67 Ibid.
68 Ibid.
69 James Bettley, RIBA Transactions, no. 2 (1982), pp. 93–100 [p. 97].
70 The Architects’ Journal, 79 (22 February 1934), pp. 278–79.
71 Ibid.
72 The Architects’ Journal, 79 (8 March 1934), p. 351.
73 ‘Town Talk’, Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, 10 February 1934, p. 2.
74 Ibid.
75 Conversation between Russell Stevens and Cyril Sweett, 27 September 1988. Cyril Sweett has published his recollections of the project in Erich Mendelsohn. 1887–1953 (1987), pp. 69–70, in which he expresses similar opinions.
76 Ibid., p. 33, where a sketch of the scheme is reproduced.
77 Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, 17 February 1934, p. 2.
78 Ibid., 3 February 1934, p. 7.
79 Ibid.
80 Ibid., 17 February 1934, p. 2.
81 Ibid., 24 February 1934, p. 7.
82 The Public Inquiry was reported in detail in the Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, 7 April 1934, pp. 4–7.
83 See n. 75.
84 Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, 7 April 1934, p. 4. Mr H. Cullerne Pratt, who was an articled pupil of Tait, remembers Mendelsohn and Chermayeff visiting the office of Sir John Burnet, Tait and Lome after winning the competition, points out that Mendelsohn’s difficulty with the English language would have made it awkward for him to appear at the Public Inquiry. Conversation between Peter Willis and H. Cullerne Pratt, 16 September 1989.
85 The Bexhill Pavilion was one of the first all-welded steel framed buildings in Britain. The engineer was Felix J. Samuely who worked extensively in Germany (at times with Mendelsohn) before emigrating to Britain in November 1933. It was Samuely’s skill as an engineer which enabled the pavilion to be built as envisaged by Mendelsohn and Chermayeff. The structure created a great deal of interest in the technical press, the most notable articles being a series written by Samuely for The Welder which appeared between April and December 1935. See The Welder, 10–11, part 1 (April 1935), pp. 529–33; part 2 (May 1935), pp. 559–63; part 3 (October 1935), pp. 716–22; part 4 (November 1935), pp. 751–59; part 5 (December 1935), pp. 783–89.
86 Ministry of Health Records. Sanctioning of Loan for Bexhill Entertainments Pavilion, 28 September 1934. Public Record Office, Kew, File HLG20/5.
87 At a Council meeting on 28 October 1935 it was decided to delay the £18,600 bathing pool scheme and to vote later on the original proposal to build a pergola on the eastern part of the site. See Southern Weekly News, 2 November 1935. On 19 November 1935 it was agreed to defer the architects’scheme for the pergola extension and reconstruction of the colonnade along the lines of the competition’s design, which would have cost £8,734. See Sussex Daily News, 25 November 1935. At a ratepayers’ association meeting on 23 January 1936 a resolution was passed that:
This meeting heartily congratulate the Bexhill town council on its decision not to proceed with the consideration of the bathing pool, and is strongly of the opinion that no steps should be taken to construct the suggested pergola or to demolish any part of the buildings now known as the colonnade.
See the Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, 25 February 1936. Later attempts to revive the idea of the swimming pool do not appear to have been taken seriously.
88 Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, 14 December 1935, p. 1.
89 Ibid.
90 Ibid., p. 11.
91 Ibid.
92 The Evening Standard, special edition on the day of the opening, quoted in ‘Growth of Bexhill — from Village to Resort: Entertainments Hall Scheme and the Pavilion Result’, Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, 30 September 1967, p. 2.
93 The Times, 14 December 1935, p. 17.
94 Reviews of the building appear in: Architect and Building News, 144 (20 December 1935), pp. 343–47; The Architects’ Journal, 82 (12 December 1935), pp. 873–85; Architectural Design and Construction 6 (January 1936), pp. 90–93; The Builder, 149 (20 December 1935), p. 1094 with illustrations on pp. 1104–09, and constructional details on pp. 1010–11; and Design for Today, 4 (December 1936), pp. 49–54.
95 Architect and Building News, 144 (20 December 193 s), pp. 343–47. On 30 March 1935 Mendelsohn had written to his wife about Bexhill. Translated from the German, his letter reads: ‘Bexhill on Friday was a great joy. The iron frame is finished and also already a part of the walls. The situation is first-class: seen from the sea, the building looks like a horizontal skyscraper which starts its development from the auditorium. Seen from the street, it is a festive invitation. The interior is truly music. Lord De La Warr told me so: he was quite excited’. See Beyer, O., ed., Eric Mendelsohn. Letters of an Architect, trans. Strachan, G. (London, New York and Toronto, 1967), p. 140.Google Scholar
96 Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, 27 June 1936, p. 1.
97 Ibid., p. 3.
98 See RIBA Drawings Collection, London, No. UI8/65.2, and Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Kunstbibliothek, Berlin, Erich Mendelsohn Archive.
99 Charles H. Reilly, ‘The Bexhill Pavilion’, The Manchester Guardian, 13 December 1935.