The British invented the modern seaside as a place of health and an escape from the sprawl of the industrial city. New typologies emerged, from the winter gardens to the circus hippodrome but perhaps the most famous is the seaside pleasure pier.

Visitors could alight from steamships and promenade over the waves, serenaded by musicians and breathing in the seaside air, said by physicians of the time to heal all manner of ailments. From its humble beginnings as a functional platform, piers developed into floating palaces offering cultural delights and spectacles of all sorts.

Over time, the tide of fashion receded, the tourists dried up, and the money with it. Piers attempted to adapt, desperately trying to stay alive however many, such as Margate Jetty did not survive.

This project proposes a new pier to stand in place of the first. It will be a truly special theatre, recalling the golden years of the end of the pier show. Visitors will alight from boats as they did many years before and be immersed in worlds of make-believe. The Island Theatre will be a marker of Margate in the twenty-first century and a beacon to signal the resurgence of the seaside.