Brutalist Brighton at the Spiritualist church
Brighton National Spiritualist Church in 1997
I lived virtually opposite the Brighton National Spiritualist Church on Edward Street for six months in 1997. It was an odd time: I had an awful job working night shifts; a friend moved into my damp basement which he painted but the walls never dried, then my girlfriend from New Orleans moved in with me.
I always liked the church. I probably never went in it but I admired its concrete curves and its austere, windowless presence. It was built in 1964-65 by Overton & Partners. The first Spiritualist Church was founded in Brighton in 1902, and they moved around various pre-existing churches until settling in the purpose-build premises in the mid-1960s.
Photographer Jo Underhill has spent over a decade photographing brutalist buildings in her project Beautiful Brutalism (also a book), which includes the Brighton National Spiritualist Church and the Alton Estate, where I lived for several years (it was never my intention to live in or opposite Brutalist masterpieces, it just turned out that way).
Though the quality wasn’t great, I loved the format of my fixed focus instamatic panoramic camera (a far more pleasing ratio than, say, the iPhone’s panoramic feature where the photos are far too long). A professional panoramic camera would have joined two or three full size 35mm frames together; my camera simply chopped off the top and bottom of a single frame so it’s half the size and quality of a 35mm photo.
There are other brutalist buildings in Brighton and Hove but nothing can really top the Royal Pavillion:
Previously on Barnflakes
Brutalism on the beach
A brief history of photography (part one)
Elsewhere on Barnflakes
Alton Estate of Mind