Designing the Seaside
Architecture, Society And Nature
Gray, Fred
Hardcover
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BOOK SUMMARY
In Alfred Hitchcocks To Catch a Thief, a seaside resort was the setting for thievery and intrigue. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers tap-danced their way to fame at a Brighton resort in The Gay Divorcee. The seaside resort has always held a special fascinati
Submit a book reviewBOOK SYNOPSIS
In Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief, a seaside resort was the setting for thievery and intrigue. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers tap-danced their way to fame at a Brighton resort in The Gay Divorcee. The seaside resort has always held a special fascination, a place of containment and leisure that has a unique form in the physical landscape: towering hotels, shop-lined boardwalks, and sprawling beaches. Fred Gray delves into the history of seaside architecture here in Designing the Seaside, writing the rich and international story of the seaside resort's diverse structures from the eighteenth century through today.Gray is interested not only in the physical structures but also the cultural mores they represent--the "yearly holiday," and our attitudes about leisure. The coastal landscape has been transformed by this geography of relaxation, and Gray considers the physical and cultural shifts that occurred when shops, boardwalks, and hotels buried sand dunes and marshes beneath their beams. He examines the design processes that went into creating the diverse buildings and spaces within a seaside resort, giving full attention to ephemeral structures such as pavilions and summer gift shops as well as the trademark hotel buildings, fairgrounds, and open spaces. Designing the Seaside also reveals how events such as beauty pageants made seaside resorts into sites of debate over conflicted issues of sexuality and morality. Drawing on a diverse array of historical material--photographs, guidebooks, postcards, and posters--Fred Gray offers a fascinating account of the cultural and social symbolism of the seaside resort and its role in the modern landscape.
AUTHOR BIO
Fred Gray is a senior lecturer in urban studies at the Centre for Continuing Education at the University of Sussex.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 1. Nature and Seaside Architecture2. Building the Seaside3. Representing the Edge4. The Seaside as Another Place5. Designing Resort Open Spaces6. Architecture for Sea and Beach7. From Bath House to Water Park8. Walking on Water9. Pavilions and Amusement Parks10. Sleeping by the Sea ReferencesSelect BibliographyAcknowledgementsPhoto AcknowledgementsIndex
BOOK REVIEWS
"A wonderful assembly of archive material, ephemera, and modern photography."--Architects' Journal
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MORE BOOK INFO
ISBN: 1861892748
ISBN(13-digit): 9781861892744
Dewey Decimal: 720.941
Library of Congress: oc2007043926
Book Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr
Language: ENG
No. of Pages: 336
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