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Margate Classic Car Club
Project Goal:
revitalisation of the once bustling, waterfront of margate
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Summary:
The car museum and learning center idea stemmed out of an idea that margate is a sea side town that is in its darkest days, financially, and socially speaking. The lido which is the existing building that sat on the given site, was considered to be the hot spot of margate during the 50s, and 60s. Nowadays it is abandoned, and attracts malicious activities on its premises. The question posed was how can a new hub utilise the existing lido building, while also remaining authentic to the current culture found in Margate? The answer was down the road since prominent car culture has been establishing its roots for a while now in Margate. Down the road was an annual car meet that took place in the prince’s park. It attracted vintage, and classic cars to a meeting point in Margate. This idea was then developed into a permanent exhibit along with a learning center to engage with the residents of Margate. The result was the Margate classic car museum, and learning center.
CLIENT:
Margate Council, United Kingdom
APPLIED SKILLS: Planning, Architecture, Rehabiliation, Resoration, Refurbishment
STATUS: Idea
Type:
Cultural Size: 60,000 meters squared Company: University of Kent
Brief history
The lido complex was built in the late 1820's, intended to be a desitnation bath house, however it was only until the 1920's that the lido, or public pool was created. During that period the buildings as you see today were built upon the baths. The current buildings had contained many diffrent fucntions throughtout the years everything from cinema's to wedding halls. However During the 1970's ,due to the dicreasing prices of air travel, Seasonal tourisit began flocking to parts of europe rather than margate. As a result the lido was abandonded, and negelected as we see today.
The Proposal
the plan is to turn the lido into a cultural musuem that would help support the local economy, with the help of using local talent
Meanwhile, it just happened that margate on a yearly basis, hosts a large car event, where various classic car owners from all around the UK congrate to share all of the classic cars. As a reuslt a classic car musuem was choosen to, to allow this even to become more of a permanent exhibit rather than a weekend event.
