In 2014 I was given a guided tour of the recently renovated
De La Warr pavilion in Bexhill, a seaside town on the South-East coast of
England. It’s another classic of early Modernism, with a dash of Expressionism
thrown in for good luck.
Eric Mendelsohn was a German Jew who fled for England in 1933. Both he and his
client were sympathetic to Soviet Russia in those heady days, and to some
extent the building was intended to be a “palace for the people. The
client was both Mayor of Bexhill and a member of the aristocracy.
I started building a Revit model as soon as I got back to Dubai, but it hasn’t
moved forward very much in the last ten years. So I decided to have another
little go. The photos on these sheets were taken during that 2014 visit. And
I’ve claimed the model up a bit.
The intention is to spend a few more days, then move on to another neglected
building from my BIM pencil studies of architectural history. There is no way I
can tie up all the loose ends in the…