The Allure of Escapist Places; Spaces for Survival.

Keywords / key ideas: 1930s leisure architecture, design for women, modernism & glamour, democratic design, The New Leisure.

A New Leisure

Working is tiring. In the 1920s and 1930s there was a big push to provide a democratic leisure infrastructure that would reform people, body and mind. Previously, leisure had been the preserve of the wealthy but now the ‘new leisure’ was developed as a way to revitalise the worker. The working class was the base layer in society that kept the gears moving and made everything possible. If the worker was losing heart and hadn’t the energy to go on then the whole superstructure would collapse. This was the impetus of the new leisure, but there was another aspect to this too, which many people were enthusiastic about. It was an aspiration for class levelling and also a new understanding about the human body’s need for a connection to nature, the importance of light and air and the value of new ideas. This was where modern design could really shine and it was an exciting time for developing a new aesthetic and new way to use and appreciate architecture.

The new architecture symbolised a new beginning.

Out of this fresh perspective emerged a new typological approach to the design of leisure landscapes. Take, for example, the seaside resort which was composed of a multitude of designed elements. The new architecture was to be clean and classless, formed from a conscientious approach that had social ideals at heart, symbolising a new beginning with an aesthetic that encompassed all aspects of the necessary infrastructure: the seaside boulevard, the cinema, the kiosk, the shelter, the buffet, the railway station, the train carriage, the railing, the bin, the seat, the window, the floor, the light fixture, the stool, the super swimming stadium, the flat roof, the chrome, the vita glass, the floodlighting. Don’t forget – the bathing suit, the bathing hat, the bathing cloak, the tanned skin, the palm trees, the poster.

Women were emblematic in the rendering of a new aesthetic.

I’m starting to write a chapter for a book about women and leisure in that era. It was a time of an unfurling and awakening for women. While they were straining against imposed social expectations, I found that ‘woman’ became emblematic in rendering a new aesthetic. Leisure venues were designed in a way that acquiesced to society’s desire for glamour and luxury, while architects attempted to adhere to a ‘set of rules’ about what was acceptable and sensible in providing a new infrastructure for a new phenomenon. Normally the interiors were the backcloth for whimsical interventions that took place within a suitably mechanistic shell. Women’s expectations were for surroundings that were intriguing, enticing, beguiling. Popular periodicals reviewed new cinema venues with regard to what was current in the world of film set design. Here the ideals of socially democratic architecture met the whims and fantasies of the cinema. Here patrons could insert themselves into the film and dream themselves up as a version of a film star. Here they could debut their lookalike Greta Garbo dress or Constance Bennet hat. There they would read about stars lounging by pools while they did so themselves.

In the display and modelling of their modern style, women replicated the historical promenading of the wealthy in their luxurious attire.

It was fundamentally a social escape and, in the display and modelling of their modern style against those backdrops, women replicated the historical promenading of the wealthy in their luxurious attire, down Sackville Street or in the ballrooms of grand houses. Within the new leisure there was opportunity for an escape to a parallel world, perhaps in that silver screen; the liminal slice of time and space between reality and a fantasy world ‘out there’. They may have discovered hope and dreams, excitement and pleasure. Perhaps they gained ambitions and a grander sense of themselves in these new environments that they themselves inspired.

Light fixture design from a British sea side buffet, 1930s.

Joan Crawford in ‘Our Blushing Brides’, 1930.

Irish ESB advertisement from the 1930s.