Description
From the post-war period to the oil crisis in the beginning of the 1970s, two different scenarios of mass tourism development were unfolding in the French region of Languedoc-Roussillon and in the United States in Miami Beach, respectively. Except for the coinciding time span of approximately 30 years of growth, the two scenarios represent completely different approaches in all aspects of development from the political decision-making to the architectural and urban planning strategies.It has been characteristic for the development at both locations that a few predominant architects, with an unbelievable production of leisure related projects, have left a lasting imprint on the sites. A common feature for these architects, in both France and the United States, is that they have been more or less neglected or literally abandoned for years by certain academic settings. Today these architects are receiving renewed attention for their theoretical approach and their comprehensive production, which today materialize as an impressive seaside catalogue of urban and architectural experimentation in scale 1:1[i].
The intention of the present paper and the conference presentation is to discuss certain aspects of the filmic staged American resorts and the social French ‘resort-structuralism'. The thesis is that a juxtaposition and a blend of resort developments at both Languedoc-Roussillon and Miami Beach hold spatial structures, which are highly relevant and must be included in the discussion about the contemporary seaside city, and in a more general discussion of contemporary urban transformation processes.
The tourism industry has rightly been accused of producing speculative, short-sighted architectural solutions and of generating mono-functional and extremely excluding environments. However, rapidly expanding development projects, the many ad-hoc solutions, the numerous mistakes and the ceaseless transformations in relation to attracting the right people have in addition created a long range of inspiring urban and architectural mutations and/or innovations. In the present paper, the physical manifestations of the tourism industry are analyzed as architectural avant-garde - for better or worse.
[i] Tom Avermaete has used the term ‘Mass-Tourism as Laboratory' (Avermaete, 2005:335-341).
| Period | 26 Jun 2009 |
|---|---|
| Event title | ‘Resorting to the Coast: Tourism, Heritage and Cultures of the Seaside' |
| Event type | Conference |
| Organiser | Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change |
| Location | Blackpool, United KingdomShow on map |