We used to go to Margate sometimes. We had only just moved to Kent (this would have been around 1995, just after the recession), and used to go exploring on the train from Canterbury. The Far East of Kent seemed to have come out of the 1980s in bad shape. The coal mines had all shut down by then, and the rise of the foreign package holiday had evidently taken its toll on the British Seaside.
Shops in Ramsgate seemed either to be empty, boarded up and covered in fly-posters, or occupied by charities. The harbour was busy though, and there seemed to be a defiant glamour to the high-Victorian buildings which stood around. We had some friends who lived there, and so spent quite a bit of time in the town or on the beach.
Margate, on the other hand, was desolate in a different way. The sea front was still well appointed with garish illuminations, amusement arcades, nightclubs, ‘casinos’ and all. The brilliant highlight was Dreamland, which at the time still just about lived up to the billing, provided you didn’t focus too hard. Beyond the front, it was clear all was not well. There was no ‘defiant glamour’, or ‘faded elegance’ in the old buildings of the town. Everything seemed broken and dirty.
By then, we had moved to live in Whitstable, which in the mid 1990s had seemed to be somewhat in the doldrums as well. By the turn of the century, however, thanks to improvements in the road to London and canny exploitation of the rise of Foodie Culture, business was booming. All the quaint little shops in the High Street were full of businesses selling suitably arty knick-knacks to people we referred to disparagingly as DFLs (Down from London), who had been persuaded to pay to sleep in glorified sheds.
There seemed nothing in Margate to persuade the DFL set to travel the extra few miles. The attractions of Dreamland had been dismantled and shipped out until there just a very, very old rollercoaster. Eventually the whole place was closed up and the old rollercoaster caught fire.
Then, plans were announced to build a major new art gallery, apparently in an attempt to follow in the footsteps of St Ives (the picturesque Cornish fishing community which was the birthplace of a significant movement of modern British painting, latterly home to the second Tate Gallery to be built outside of London).
Around this time, just after the founding of the National Lottery, and the decision to mark the start of the Third Millennium, hundreds of projects were announced or commenced around the country, to build bridges, parks, museums and art galleries. It was hoped that many of these would help spark regeneration to areas run down in the wake of de-industrialisation. Lots of these projects succeeded – they opened on time, and have been enjoyed ever since. Some have failed to capture the imagination and since closed. I distinctly remember a Museum of Pop Music in Sheffield, of all things.
Margate’s Millennium Project was going to be a museum of contemporary art, ostensibly inspired by the fact that Turner spent some time in the area, and once wrote that ‘...the skies over Thanet are the loveliest in all Europe”.
Kent County Council organised an
Architectural Competition, which was won by a scheme which placed an inverted boat-shaped (or was it egg-shaped?) building on the harbour breakwater, literally on the beach. Images showed the waves crashing up over the £7.4M building filled with irreplaceable masterpieces.
Once the winning entry, by the Norwegian practice
Snøhetta was subjected to detailed design, the actual cost was established three or four years later to be nearer £25M. The project was
halted without a sod being turned, and the council settled out of court to recover costs of
£5.8M
Meanwhile, an artist from Margate called Tracey Emin RA had risen to become the rebellious face of contemporary British art. Still being referred to by BBC announcers as an
enfant terrible (despite being in her late forties, a Royal Academician, and ploughing a furrow of emotional-incontinence-as-art which was old-hat ten years ago) Tracey became a much needed cheerleader for her home town.
The project hired architect David Chipperfield to provide a new scheme. His refreshing attitude (
There is a pressure on architecture to be interesting. The worst criticism you can throw at a building here is that it is boring. The original scheme fulfilled this expectation by ‘looking funny’. But this is not a cathedral, it is not Bilbao. It is a good, local arts space.”) resulted in what some may consider to be a ‘boring’ looking building. It’s certainly not ‘funny looking’... The kind of mature, sober looking building which you feel could only really be appreciated by someone with an educated eye.
We went back to Margate on one of the recent Bank Holidays to see for ourselves. There have been a few changes. Prominent on the road from Canterbury is the Georgian frontage of the Royal Sea Bathing Hospital, recently derelict, now refurbished and reborn as upmarket flats. The road passes the railway station, and the sixties concrete tower block (popularly described as an eyesore); the wide vista of the beach opens up on the left and in the distance the new gallery is visible as two or three low white cubic forms, nestled into the cliff of the Eastern headland.
We parked the car beyond the gallery and walked down towards it, noticing the conspicuous way in which the hard landscaping and planting changed suddenly from traditional (neglected) to shiny new lottery-minimalist at the margin of the building. The path dropped down a canyon like staircase onto the plaza at the gallery entrance, where people were sitting in the sun drinking coffee - just as they almost certainly had been in the architect's drawings.
The entrance to the building also contains the capacious gift shop, and a reception desk. We lingered for a while near a large window which was adorned with a transparent yellow circular frame and mirrors in each reveal, framing and reflecting a view of the wind whipped sea, and a huge sky filled with racing clouds. The window, of course, was part of the architecture, but the yelllow frame and mirrors are, we learned later, art - an installation called
Borrowing and Multiplying the Landscape, by Daniel Buren.
All the galleries are up stairs. We walked up another concrete staircase - I noticed the exposed concrete structure of the ceiling, interested in the fact that a mere 20 years ago that kind of detail would have only been allowed in a multi-storey car park - but we could have ridden in one of the biggest lifts I have ever seen.
Once in the gallery rooms we found and enjoyed various works, which were mainly inspired by the gallery and the town itself (what are called 'Site Specific' pieces), and a single work by JMW Turner - A volcanic eruption on St Vincent, 1815.
Emerging into the town, we found that quite a lot had improved. Some of the Georgian and Victorian buildings had been restored, and Dreamland seemed to be being revived as a Heritage Theme Park, incorporating the very old rollercoaster.
We will definitely visit the gallery again. The next exhibition opens on 17 September.
