Brighton West Pier England : Architecture Information

7 Jul 2009 Brighton's West Pier : A Phoenix from the Ashes Never-seen-before images of Brighton's West Pier have been released today, allowing a new generation to see Britain's most famous pier - now a startling ruin - in all its former glory for the first time. Brighton's West Pier, which opened in 1866, was England's finest seaside pier and the first to be Grade I listed. It closed in 1975. Since then it has continued into decay, until reaching its current derelict state following a series of fires storms over the past decade. In April 2009, F10 Studios were approached by Brighton's West Pier Trust to graphically restore the pier and provide visualisations that illustrated the pier in its heyday. F10's brief was to capture the true beauty and romanticism of the much loved piece of sea-side architecture as it was in 1920. Glen Bruckland at F10 said: "The first challenge was piecing together the original plans and drawings, some dating back to the 1860's. Some of these prints had not seen the light of day in years, and the job of pulling all the information together was a huge task in itself. Fortunately local structural engineering firm HOP was also able to provide several digital drawings which assisted with the main structural modeling. In order for the images to be convincing a high level of detail was essential. The West Pier Trust also provided plenty of reference photography from the 1920's which were vital for adding all these details. In all it took over a month to model, with detailing going down to individual nuts and bolts." Rachel Clark, General Manager of the West Pier Trust, said: "Being able to preserve and showoff to a new generation this wonderful part of British architectural history is extremely important to us. The stunning visuals produced by F10 have done just that, and we are looking forward to working with them on future projects to help our cause."