Bournemouth – changing architecture of the South Coast

These are just some of the architectural highlights Bournemouth.

Roddis House, built in the mid 1930’s, housed "Plummer Roddis", one of the main department stores of the town for much of the twentieth century. The building is designed in the Art Deco style, which was at its height in the 1930’s, and is characterised by the paired down classicism that can be seen on this building. The clean lines and well defined angles continue to give a look of modernity to the building, despite its age, and the corner octagonal tower is a distinctive landmark, which echoes the design of the buildings formerly on this site. The "Plummer and Roddis" department store fell foul of the recent trend for out of town supermarkets, and the building now houses several shops on the ground floor, and a number of office suites above.

The Pine Walk Bandstand dates from 1933, when the path through the pine trees behind it was still known as Invalid’s Walk, and Bournemouth was still famous as a resort of the elderly and the infirm. Bournemouth was rather unique in its policy of publicly funding the open air performance of music, at various bandstands throughout the town, and the legacy of this early Municipal endeavour survives in the world Famous Bournemouth symphony Orchestra. A bandstand was first built on this site in 1884, and the popularity of the building prompted the construction of the present building. Concerts have been performed here free of charge down through the years.

The Bournemouth International Centre was designed in 1984, and finally completed in 1988. The decision to construct this conference and leisure centre, resulted from a lengthy process of discussion and policy formation, to make Bournemouth able to compete with the top facilities nationwide. The result is a building large enough to house the annual conferences of the national political parties on a regular basis. The BIC, with its typical twentieth century design features, including the flat root horizontal emphasis, and the vast expanses of windows is a highly distinctive building, in Bournemouth’s seafront townscape.

Cranbourne House is one of the newest buildings of Bournemouth, and reflects its newly attained position as a "University Town." This huge building was constructed to provide accommodation for the large population of students who now form an important part of town life, as Bournemouth sheds its former Costa-Del-Geriatric image, to become a lively and youthful resort.

The Nuffield Hospital is a private hospital which occupies the site of several old viIlas in the Dean Park area of town. When the Cooper Dean family first developed this part of their estates in the late 1860’s this was wild heathland, covered in shoulder high gorse on the edge of town, and the surrounding roads were difficult for anyone to use in winter, or for ladies of refinement to use at any time. The Cooper Dean’s surveyor Christopher Crabbe Creeke was expansive in his designs for the building estate, setting grand villas on large plots in gently curving roads. Although the town has now dramatically expanded, and Dean Park is now a central district, rather than an outlying region, the former spaciousness and elegance is successfully preserved, and the area is now a conservation area. This section of the hospital buildings won the first Bournemouth Civic Design Award in 1984, the year after it was built.

Pegasus Court, built in 1991, is another building which won a Civic Design Award. It stands opposite the Nuffield Hospital, and occupies the site of two former Dean Park villas. The present building was designed by Denning Male Polisano architects, of Farnham Surrey. Two years before Dean Park was designated as a conservation area, the building was designed with historical features strongly to the fore, as part of the Post Modernist architectural reaction against the excessively plain designs of the previous decades. This building features bays, gables, corner towers, tile hanging, and pseudo timber framing all characteristic of the Victorian villas of Dean Park, although the overall design of the building, and its formal classical proportions hark even further back to the Georgian period. As a whole, the building has a modern and interesting appearance.

Homelife House is one of the tallest, and certainly the most distinctive building in Bournemouth. It was designed by the Hedley Greentree Partnership of Fareham in Hampshire, for McCarthy and Stone, a local building company, specialising in constructing sheltered housing for the elderly population, for which the conurbation is renowned. The building has entered into local consciousness as a major landmark, and is known, usually with wry affection, as the "Jelly Mould" and the "Radio Set". According to more informed sources, the design is actually supposed to represent the "M" of director John McCarthy’s surname. Homelife House is a suitable monument to the rapid success of a modern local business.

The changing pier - this building houses a ground floor amusement arcade, a first floor nightclub, basement lavatories and several small shop units. It stands in a prime position on the seafront at the foot of Bournemouth Pier, and serves in part as an introduction to the Pier, which can only be reached by passing this building. The clock tower is a distinctive feature of the sea front region, and continues a tradition stretching back to the 1880’s, when a building was first erected in this position. The whole building is a focal point for the area known as "The Pier Approach", or more cheekily as "Red Square", since the redesign of the area in the 1970’s resulted in a large public space lined with reddish block payers. This building, known as the Show Bar, was given the go ahead in 1979, and finished in 1982. The Show Bar set the tone for a redesign of the whole area; an IMAX cinema is presently being built on the site of the baths, and the Donkey Shelter has been revamped as the Hot Rocks Cafe. Additionally a brand new Oceanarium has been added to the cluster of "Pier Approach" buildings.