Pleasure Beach Blackpool: General History
Blackpool’s Pleasure Beach developed at the southern end of the resort from an informal fairground at the beginning of the twentieth century. It relied from the outset upon American rides and was soon advertising itself as England’s greatest American amusement park. In 1931, while on a visit to Philadelphia, the Pleasure Beach’s new managing director Leonard Thompson saw parks themed in the modernist style and thought the style might suit the Pleasure Beach.
In 1933 Leonard Thompson commissioned Joseph Emberton to prepare a long-term reorganization scheme for the whole Pleasure Beach to provide an overall visual unity with a Modernist theme, the work to be carried out in stages. Thompson had been introduced to Emberton by Austin Reed who had previously employed Westwood and Emberton’ Emberton continued to design for Pleasure Beach until his death in 1956 at which stage Jack Ratcliffe, who had been involved in the Festival of Britain, was appointed to continue the Emberton’s work.
Other Works
• 1934 Babies’ Creche, [Manchester Guardian 16 January 1935 page 7 with illustration]
• 1935 Pay box, “Jack and Jill Ride”. [Architects’ Journal 10 January 1935 page 56 - illustration]
• 1936 – Art Deco treatment to Big Dipper by Emberton. The Big Dipper Station was rebuilt in 1953 to an engineering design by Frank Newby of Felix Samuely and Partners. Felix Samuely himself had worked With Emberton on Simpson's, Piccadilly
• 1936 Wild Mouse Roller coaster ride designed by Frank Wright. Single-seater cars were designed by Joseph Emberton in 1939
• 1935 Station for Grand National. The old scenic railway has been rebuilt on a different route, and its station is being rebuilt. It will have a tower, too, of concrete. The track will come into the station from below ground level. , [Manchester Guardian 16 January 1935 page 7]
THE PLEASURE BEACH AT BLACKPOOL - Visitors to Blackpool last summer may have noticed revolution breaking oat in the Pleasure Beach. The Casino was still there, with Its gilded open-work cupolas, its icing-cake decorations, its festoons of electric bulbs, a portent of the fantastic pleasures of the beach. But the Fun House presented a strange appearance, all white by day, painted with bands of moving colour at night, and it was all changed inside, and not in the least like the Casino. This was one of the first big attacks of "modernismus" at Blackpool, which was actually planned by Mr. Joseph Emberton, architect of the new Olympia front.
This change has been preparing for long. An American architect did a number of modern buildings for the beach three years ago. They had no fretwork on them and no gold knobs, and, moreover, they were revolutionary in colour. Green and white used to be the standard colours, but the architect put his brush in all the paint-pots. Next winter some more fluted, coloured buildings appeared (the Roller Coaster building was one) and with them Mr. Emberton's miniature railway station. Last year Mr. Emberton designed the Fun House, the children's garden. and the créche. And in the summer his railway station was burned down, and he was asked to design another.
Before April four or five new Emberton buildings are to appear. The station for the "Pleasure Beach Express" is almost rebuilt. It has a triangular tower of illuminated glass panels and a succession of deep circular fins under. all flood-lighted. The station walls are much lower than before. and it is expected that the new design will give a better scale to the miniature than the old. The old scenic railway has been rebuilt on a different route, and its station is being rebuilt. It will have a tower, too, of concrete. The track will come into the station from below ground level.
A new machine called "The Bug" which has some of the advantages of ""The Whip" And some of the advantages of a switchback, is now being imported. The old site of the children's playground and the "Cuddle Up" have been given over for the extension of the speed-boat pool, and Mr. Emberton is now designing for the use of this extended space.
If the old Blackpool stagers miss anything in this new array it is lights, more lights. They could be seen this last summer still gazing in rapture at the naked multitudinous candle-power of the festoons on the Casino, while the bands of diffused running colours fled along #the end of the Fun House and flood-lamps made the main front incandescent with fixed colour but less seductively to them. It costs at least as much to use these' washes of coloured light as it does to sprinkle the darkness with points. and not everyone has succumbed yet to the warmth and radiance of the illuminated masses to which the new world invites its public to gaiety and abandon. But Blackpool believes on victory and its architect. [Manchester Guardian 16 January 1935 page 7]