Project Overview

In January 2017 Bexhill Museum was awarded a £20,300 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to facilitate an exciting new project,“People-Object-Place”, which took place in the Bexhill and Hastings area. Led by students from the local community, the project focused on the heritage of migration in the region and the contributions made to the local area, and considered contemporary topics of migration in the current era.

th Students of Art and Design from Bexhill 6 Form College and Sussex Coast College Hastings worked with Bexhill Museum, Hastings Museum and Art Gallery and the , to explore the heritage of migration in the area through archived material and artefacts.

The students, supported by arts practitioners attended workshops at Bexhill Museum and the partner organisation where discussions on the topic of migration took place and a project strategy formed. Resulting from these planning workshops the students curated three innovative exhibitions displays at each cultural venue; exhibiting the heritage uncovered by the project alongside contemporary artworks they developed responding to migration. Migration of Design

This research area explored how design and style have travelled from their place of origin and had been applied in a different location and context. The students were particularly aware of this as a feature of the fashion industry and voiced the opinion that the appropriation of design, although creating interesting fusions and a rich influence, does not always consider the culture and people from whence it originated from.

Research into this topic led the students to look at the architectural heritage of Bexhill's seafront buildings.

The Kursaal - East Parade, Bexhill-on-Sea

The Kursaal – Bexhill looks east

The Kursaal used to stand where the Bexhill Sailing Club is today and was one of the most important buildings in the early resort. It also set the architectural theme for Bexhill’s new seafront in the 1890s. Even the name suggests something strange and exotic and is from the German word for an entertainment hall at a Spa town – the ‘cure hall’. Bexhill’s strong German connections and the resorts early pretensions as a spa – the local spring water tasted so bad that it must be good for you – came together in the naming of this building but its style was something altogether more eastern.

Orientalist architecture was a mixture of North African, Middle Eastern and Far Eastern styles and is a fashion in seaside architecture that can be traced back to Brighton’s Royal Pavilion. In Bexhill this style was usually just described as ‘Moorish’ meaning Islamic North African but in practice it was a rather playful combination of domes, turrets and cupolas rather than a strict copy, it’s how we imagined the east might be. th The Kursaal was built for the 8 Earl De La Warr and was Bexhill-on-Sea’s first entertainment pavilion. It and the newly constructed Bicycle Boulevard were opened by the th Duchess of Teck on the 25 May 1896. The Earl’s vision for Bexhill-on-Sea was to be like the south of , particularly Nice, and he introduced Continental innovations – such as mixed bathing and motor racing – to promote the resort.

Pavilion Pier in Nice-a-Menton

The Kursaal was the closest thing to a pier that we ever got – it did extend from the promenade over the beach, but it was never built out into the sea despite initial ambitious plans to do so.

B e x h i l l

C h r o n i c l e

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[What the newspaper wording above says:-

In connection with the present negotiations regarding the taking over by the Council of the East Parade – and in connection also with the “Winter Garden”, Rotunda, and other proposals at the East – the reproduction of the above picture of the “Kursaal as it was to be” will prove interesting.

The present Kursaal is not a complete building, of course. The original scheme contemplated something much more elaborate. It was fully hoped that the original scheme will be carried out someday or other ; but the question of protection against coastal erosion was not at that time (the Kursaal was opened in 1896) a very pressing one.

The fact that it is a very pressing one today gravely affects the position of both the Kursaal and the Parade.

But there are many people who hold that, if the various proprietors interested can be persuaded to come to terms on any scheme which will be best for the town, they can be no reason why all will not find it profitable.

There never was a time when matters were in better “tune” for such an arrangement being come to – one which would place the control of the whole Front in the hands of the Council on satisfactory terms ; and it will be 1000 pitches, from the point of view of all interested, if any hitch arises now. If it had not been for unnecessary hitches in the past the Kursaal idea portrayed here might well have been a reality.] The Kursaal was the location of many ‘firsts’ for Bexhill, it showed the first moving pictures in 1898 and in 1912 became a film studio itself and the first official Sherlock Holmes films were made there. There was even a ‘mad’ inventor with his laboratory on the roof, Harry “Death ray” Mathews who built and demonstrated his wireless telephone and remote controlled torpedo from there in 1907.

th It was at the Kursaal at Christmas 1901 that the 8 Earl met Miss Turner an actress who had been performing there. They ran off together and so precipitated the divorce that shocked Bexhill in July 1902 and resulted in the next generation of De La Warr’s being brought up by the Brassey side of the family.

As we approach the centenary of the Great War it is worth noting that it was in 1916 the Kursaal was renamed ‘The Pavilion’ due to the protestations of the notorious Horatio Bottomley of John Bull magazine, who criticised Bexhill for having an entertainment hall with a German name. Shortly afterwards it was taken over by the Canadian Army Training School.

Interior of the Kursaal

The 'Moorish Lounge' of the Kursaal

The Kursaal’s style was copied westwards along Bexhill’s seafront with Channel View (the retail section of which was called ‘The Cairo’) and Marina Court Avenue, culminating in 1911 with the opening of the Colonnade and its iconic cupolas. That the Maharaja of Cooch Behar also died at 22 Marina Court Avenue in 1911 further confused the facts in people’s minds creating many local myths. John Betjeman’s poem “Original sin on the Sussex coast” is clearly inspired by Bexhill and its many schools and mentions “the copper domes of Cooch Behar”.

The Cairo, Bexhill th We are now much more familiar with the 9 Earl’s entertainment hall, the De La Warr Pavilion which was built and opened in 1935. Once the new Pavilion was up and running there was no need for the old one and the Kursaal was demolished in 1936.

Returning to the idea of clothes fashions, the students began to research similar examples of appropriated design in textiles. Research trips to project partners Hastings Museum and Art Gallery revealed obvious connections between ethnic garments worn by native Americans and fashion garments in the costume collection in Bexhill Museum.

Above - Native American Jacket with beaded floral design on display at Hastings Museum and Art gallery.

Right - Dress. Cotton crepe machine-made with hand sewn elements. C.1938 Bexhill Museum collection

Combining these areas of heritage and to draw focus to the nature of migrating design, the students undertook making artworks that made a comment about the practice of cultural appropriation. Taking a very specific cultural garment, the kimono they set about creating versions that were indiscriminately decorated with patterns inspired by the Orientalist style heritage architecture of Bexhill. The work created first went on display at Hastings Museum and Art Gallery in May 2017 before being exhibited at Bexhill Museum throughout the rest of the year.

Above - Native American waistcoat. On display at Hastings Museum and Art Gallery.

Right - Suede waistcoat and hotpants. Factory produced. C.1960s. Bexhill Museum collection.

The Display at Hastings Museum & Art Gallery

The Display at Bexhill Museum Migration for Work

Students in this group focused on people who had come to the Bexhill and Hastings area for the purpose of work and who had contributed greatly to the development of the area.

Relocating for employment is one of the major reasons for migration in society. Economic migrancy is often stigmatised as opportunist and less advantaged nations capitalising on another countries wealth. However many people within their own countries relocate to different areas, to seek better working opportunities to improve their lives.

A significant physical feature of Bexhill and an important visitor attraction is the De La Warr Pavilion. Built in 1936 the pavilion was designed by an architectural partnership of two Jewish migrants, Serge Chermayeff and . Being pioneering exponents of both steel and concrete for construction, the students wished to drawn attention to another migrant to East Sussex during the 1930s who was also an innovator in the use of the materials. Civil engineer Sydney Little travelled around Britain from his place of birth before moving to Hastings where he implemented ground breaking schemes to redevelop the seafront area and water services of the town.

Chermayeff and Mendelsohn

Serge Chermayeff (1900-1996) – Photograph taken c1930

Serge Chermayeff was born Sergius Ivanovich Issakovitch at Grozny, in what is now Chechnya. He was born into an wealthy Jewish family who had acquired their fortune in the oil industry. They were a close-knit and cultivated family and they chose to educate Serge in England, at a preparatory school from the age of 10 and afterwards at Harrow.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 saw the family stripped of their fortune and following the First World War his parents fled to . At this time Serge had been offered a place at Trinity College, Cambridge, however no longer having the financial support of his family he was to forego his studies. He instead began work as a journalist covering new dance crazes, in which he participated and won several international competitions. He took his talent to Argentina where he became studied Tango and became a partner in a Buenos Aires dance hall. He returned to Britain and in 1924 assumed the name of Chermayeff following the death of his father. He now began work within an interior design company which specialised in period interiors and in his spare time continued his links with the theatre by designing stage sets.

The Modernist style of design was emerging throughout Europe during the 1920s and Chermayeff undertook periods of study ventures abroad. In 1928 he became a British citizen following the marriage to Barbara Maitland May whom he met in Sussex. He continued to develop his skills of interior design and in the early part of the 1930s set up his own interior design company where his reputation grew wider gaining him the respect of major architects and artists of the time.

In 1933 he became a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and soon after went into partnership with exiled German architect Eric Mendelsohn.

In 1933 the partnership won the competition to design the De La Warr pavilion in Bexhill which was to become the first major Modernist building in Britain.

Chermayeff and Mendelsohn continued to work together until their partnership dissolved in 1936. Chermayeff continued his design practice and built several notable projects on his own including his private residence in Halland, East Sussex.

Following the outbreak of WW2 his business declined resulting in him declaring bankruptcy. Being prevented from contributing to Britain's war effort, Serge and Barbara reluctantly sold their possessions and moved to the United States where he entered a career of academia holding numerous teaching posts and rising to professorship at both Harvard and Yale universities and numbered both Britain's Sir Richard Rogers and Sir Norman Foster among his students.

Erich Mendelsohn (1887-1953) – photograph taken c1934

Erich Mendelsohn was born on the 21 March, 1887 in Allenstein, East Prussia (now in Poland). He studied architecture in Berlin and Munich and in 1915 married cellist Louiser Maas. He opened a studio in Berlin after the First World War. In 1921 he lost the sight of one eye, the result of a tumour.

In 1924 he made his first visit to America. In 1926/7 he designed the Cohen-Epstein Store in Duisburg; in 1926/8 the Petersdorf Store in Breslau; in 1928/9 the Schocken Store in Chemnitz; in 1 929/30 the German Metallurgic Federation and Mendelsohn House in Berlin and in 1931/2 the Columbushaus in Berlin.

In the spring of 1933, in the wake of growing antisemitism and the rise of the Nazis in Germany, he fled to England. His fortune was seized by the Nazis, his name struck from the list of the German Architects' Union, and he was excluded from form the Prussian Academy of Arts.

In Britain he formed an architectural practice with Serge Chermayeff, a friend of long standing. In 1934 they won the competition instigated by the 9th earl De La Warr for the De La Warr Pavilion with their welded-steel frame design. In 1936 Mendelsohn's collaboration with Chermayeff came to an end.

Between 1936 and 1939 he maintained studios in London and Jerusalem. In 1939 he obtained British citizenship and was made a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

In 1939 he moved to Palestine and in 1941 to New York. In 1946 he was granted American citizenship and from this time most of his work was done in the United States. He died on the 12th September, 1953.

Extract from the “Architects Journal”, of 1934

The Bexhill Competition

Like his father before him, the 9th Earl De La Warr had plans to build a grand entertainment facility in the town. Whilst Mayor of Bexhill, he instigated a design competition inviting architects to submit proposals for an innovative building to serve the town and attract visitors to the resort.

Following his father's example, the 9th earl also looked to the continent has example and stipulated that competition entries should be of the 'Modern, European style'.

Extract from the Architects Journal 1934

Two photographs showing the De La Warr Pavilion under construction Sidney Little - The Concrete King

Sidney Little was born in 1885 in Carlisle where his father worked as a consultant Civil Engineer and he learnt his future trade by working with his father for 5 years.

In 1910 he passed his exams and became a chartered engineer and then moved to Leeds to work on the sewerage system.

By 1913 he was working for the Wallasey Corporation and then moved on to build factories in Dumfriesshire and steel rolling mills in Southampton and Hamble.

He moved to Ipswich, in 1919, where he was the Deputy Borough engineer for, roughly, seven years.

He applied for a post in Hastings, in 1926, and, after impressing the local councillors with his vision and enthusiasm for the town, he was offered the job of Borough Engineer and water Engineer, he was later to also become the Planning Officer.

Hastings sea front prior to Little's development

Hastings sea front under construction with the use of reinforced concrete

Not all of Little’s proposals for Hastings were taken up and built and the event of the WW2 put some of the projects on hold. But those that were completed were to have a big effect on the town and community. Little’s vision considered how to attract visitors to the town and compete with other costal resorts in the area; how to improve transport links to and within the town; how to cope with an increase in private motor vehicles; what facilities would be required by visitors and locals and how to prevent the view and access to the beach being blocked by parked cars.

One of his innovations was to build the first ever underground car park. This structure, completed in 1931 is still in use today and answered many of his objectives. The construction of the two-tier promenade completed in 1934 also made a big difference to the town and rapidly became a landmark beloved by the locals. The lower walkway was decorated with broken glass bottles collected for a fee by local unemployed people from the town dump. This became known as Bottle Alley and has recently been restored to its former glory after a petition by the local community highlighted its decline and neglect by the local authorities.

By using the unemployed from depressed areas of the country, Little was able to keep his costs down as the, then, Government Ministry for Health would issue a grant for their employment. This helped the local economy and provided an influx of new faces into the town providing growth and expansion another of Little’s goals. He was to make Hastings his home for the rest of his life and to raise a family here. Little's pioneering and proficient use of concrete in construction earned him the epithet 'The Concrete King'. The History of Concrete

Pozzolan cement:

In Roman times concrete was made from volcanic ash found in the bay of Naples which was mixed with lime to form a mortar. For their underwater structures which still stand after 2000 years, the Romans mixed mortar and volcanic turf which was then tightly packed into wooden frames and lowered into place along the harbour walls. The sea water triggered a chemical reaction that hydrated the lime causing it to react with the ash to cement everything together. The resulting bond is extremely strong and these techniques are being revisited today as modern-day Portland cement erodes when exposed to sea water and its manufacture produces a large amount of carbon dioxide waste much more than that produced by Roman techniques and materials.

Portland cement:

Portland cement was developed in the 18th century in England following many different experiments with natural cements from the 1400s. After several refinement s to the ingredients and the kilns especially the development of a rotary kiln in 1885, the mass production and use of concrete was established. The introduction of reinforced concrete in 1849 by adding steel rods to the cement increased the strength of the product and allowed for it to be used in more projects especially those where the completed structure would be subject to heavy loads.

The choice of reinforced concrete by Sidney Little and architects Mendelsohn and Chermayeff for the building of their structures can be attributed to its strength, durability, availability and affordability. It also allows for flexibility in design.

[NOTE. To learn more about the Romans and their use of concrete, go to the “Home” page and click on the link to “Beauport Park Roman Baths”]

To communicate the heritage of these three migrants to the area and align their commonality of construction, the students produced graphic artworks which were screen printed onto to mild steel sheets, responding to the component part of reinforced concrete and building structure. Material for the designs were sourced from Bexhill Museum and Hastings Museum and Art Gallery and included archive photographs and extracts from the Architects Journal of 1934.

The display of the work was first exhibited at the De La Warr Pavilion in June 2017 before being installed at Bexhill Museum until December 2017.

Exhibition at De La Warr Pavilion

2 of the 6 artworks produced by students Migration for Safety

This area of the project looked at people who had come to this region seeking sanctuary having been forced to leave their homelands. The students working on this, researched archive at Bexhill Museum to trace a timeline through history of refugees settling in the area.

1804 – 14 Between 1804 and 1814, more than 5,000 soldiers of the King's German Legion were garrisoned at Bexhill on Sea. These were Hanoverian troops who had escaped Germany when it was overrun by the Napoleonic Army.

[See also the story of the “Kings German Legion” in Bexhill by following the link on the “Home Page”.]

1914 - When Germany invaded Belgium, there was a mass exodus of people seeking safety. The 250,000 Belgians who made the UK their home in the First World War was the largest influx of refugees in British history. Over 90% returned home within a year of the war ending.

[See also “World War 1 – Bexhill Remembers” by following the link on the “Home Page”].

1937 - 39 - The violence of the Spanish Civil War and the bombing of Guernica caused nearly 4,000 child refugees to seek sanctuary in the UK, arriving by boat in May 1937. By mid- September, all had been relocated to a residential home.

Basque refugee children at Hertsmonceux Castle 1940s / 50s - At the end of the Second World War, the Soviets annexed Eastern Poland, incorporating it into ; the rest of the country was ruled by a Communist government imposed by Russia. Many Poles rejected this settlement, choosing to live in West and continue the struggle for a free Poland. The Polish Resettlement Act of 1947 offered citizenship to over 200,000 Polish troops on British soil who had fought Nazi Germany and opposed the Russian takeover of their country.

1972 The UK gave refuge to approximately 25,000 Asian Ugandan refugees after the dictator Idi Amin accused them of stealing the nation’s wealth and giving them just 90 days to leave the country. A refugee camp was established on a former RAF base near Uckfield, East Sussex. From here some were given employment and social support by Bexhill based company, British Radio Corporation.

From the Bexhill Chronical, 1972 The Present Day - In the year ending 2017, government immigration statistics show a total of 24,293 initial decisions on asylum have been made on asylum application. Of these, 8,214 were grants of asylum or other forms of protection. Yet the total number of decisions made dropped in the beginning months of 2017. This would indicate that more people are waiting for longer for a decision to be made on their asylum application. In the same period, a 9% increase on the previous year was shown for applications from unaccompanied children, a total of 3,680.

To gain a further insight of contemporary refugees in our region, the project made contact with Hastings based charity Education Training Consortium Sussex (ETC Sussex)) who provide support for members of marginalized communities, among them new migrants to the area.

Following training sessions held at Bexhill Museum the students met with ETC Sussex members and conducted at recorded oral history interviews with individuals. The project was privileged to have been given candid stories of individuals leaving their homeland and their experience of settling in the area. These collected stories form the heritage of the day for future generations to learn from.

Project team and students with ETC Sussex members 2017

The students developed these interviews into an audiovisual piece of work that was displayed in Bexhill Museum throughout 2017. Those involved in People-Object-Place were:

Laura Asselborn Isobel Brown Alannah Evans Rebecca Helbick Sue McLean Jacky Mission Aaron Murphy Dawn Monk Chris Richards Donna-Lee Seymour Joshua Speer Sam Spice Jack White

Colin Heminway - Project Manager Bern O'Donoghue - Creative Mentor Bexhill 6th Form College Sussex Coast College Hastings Hastings Museum and Art Gallery De La Warr Pavilion

“People-Object-Place” was made possible by the funds raised by National Lottery players.