[in-enaction] narcissus gazes upon the city: Brighton beach

Is there something in the sea air?

Things are looking up in Brighton - from high-rise apartments on the 
waterfront to a giant viewing tower from the people that brought us the 
London Eye. But it's not the only place on England's south coast 
enjoying a design revival, says Stephen Bayley

Sunday October 22, 2006
The Observer

The discovery that tepid sea-bathing may cure scurvy, jaundice, leprosy 
and the King's Evil changed the destiny of the Sussex village of 
Brighthelmstone. It was the work of a local doctor, Richard Russell of 
Lewes, whose Dissertation Concerning the Use of Sea Water in Diseases of 
the Glands was published in Latin in 1750 and in English three years 
later (with a valuable appendix on 'The Antistrumous - or anti-scrofula 
- remedies of the Antients'). Russell also discovered a spring whose 
waters were healthfully ferric.

So visitors started arriving for the Brighthelmstone brand experience. 
The Ship Inn had to build an assembly room to cope with popular demand 
for assembling. Fashionable people started arriving. Dr Johnson wrote 
his Lives of the English Poets in Mrs Thrale's house in West Street. And 
fashionable people needed architecture: the Prince of Wales had Henry 
Holland build a marine pavilion in 1786, although it was sited a 
comfortable distance from the sometimes violent Channel. The village 
enlarged into the town of Brighton and its first development to address 
the sea was the Royal Crescent of 1798-1807.

cont'd....
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1928314,00.html