Sunday, January 28 turned out to be a sunny day, just right to visit the 20th Century Decorative Art Fair in the De La Warr Pavilion (DLWP), in Bexhill-on-Sea.
There were more than 20 stalls with beautiful pieces, Art Deco lamps, glassware, furniture and lots of different collectables. Sadly, it was all rather expensive. The views from the cafe were stunning as the sun reflected in the calm sea. The building has an interesting history.
The brief for the De La Warr building was written by Earl De La Warr, mayor of Bexhill in the 1930s – he wanted large window spaces, terraces and canopies. Architects in Britain at the time embraced modernism though the financial slump of the late 1920s delayed ambitious schemes. Unemployment ultimately allowed real progress. The government loosened planning regulations as long as the schemes used unemployed labour. The first architectural feat was the De La Warr Pavilion built in 1935. A Jewish architect, Eric Mendelson, who had escaped to Britain from Nazi Germany, won the competition to design something that would be, what the Earl described as “an antidote to the gloom and dreariness of British resorts”.
In the De La Warr Pavilion there is also an exhibition space (rather boring art presently) and an interesting bookshop.
Photos: Heidi Foster