Retro-chic neon out of keeping

IF THOMAS Heatherwick's Studio thinks that neon is "a traditional feature of the English seaside", it suggests that he knows as much, or as little about the seaside as he does about designing attractive and contextually sympathetic buildings.

By The Newsroom

Published 4th Mar 2010, 10:23 BST

Our seaside culture goes back long before neon; which was invented in France, patented there in 1915 and popularised in America.

As a traditional feature it is conspicuously absent from the seafronts of Brighton, Worthing, Littlehampton and Bognor.

Certainly neon is enjoying something of a retro-chic revival, but for many years it was out of fashion, looking rather ugly, cheap and nasty, and as such I think it suits the caf very well.

Mark Williams,

Mantling Road,

Littlehampton

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