217 Babel Street | A Nip In The Air
Architecturally, the twentieth century can only be seen as a disaster for Blackthorn Sands. Apart from Frank Matcham’s 1909 New Eden Theatre, discussed above, only one other pre-World War II building is worthy of mention. Unlike Matcham’s confection, it has survived, but in a greatly disfigured state.
Number 217 Babel Street serves an altogether different aesthetic. Intended as an example of the cool European style fashionable on the south coast in the 1930s, the original plans by Sabina Klein reveal graceful lines that would have easily rivalled Wells Coates’ work in Brighton, even Erich Mendelsohn’s De La Warr Pavilion. Little-known now, Klein had been part an illustrious group of Berlin modernists that included Mendelsohn, artist Franz Marc and astrophysicist Erwin Freundlich. Unlike Mendelsohn though, Klein’s star faded when she arrived in Britain as a refugee circa 1933. Struggling to find work in London, she moved to Blackthorn to raise a child.
Her only major British commission is sadly not much of a legacy. Relations with the investors broke down during the building stage. After Klein refused to shorten the building by four floors they brought in the local architect also responsible for the out-of-proportion windows. The front door’s magnificent original glass and steel canopy was removed in the 60s when it became dangerous. Though she apparently despised the resulting building, Klein herself lived there for the last forty years of her life.
From A Nip In The Air: The History of Blackthorn Sands, by Julian Landesbury