Embassy Court

This architectural object is inspired by Embassy Court on Kings Road, on the Brighton seafront — the boldest modernist building on the south coast and one of the defining works of Wells Coates. Completed in 1935, it rises eleven storeys sheer above the promenade: a crisp, white, horizontal stack of concrete and glass set down among the cream Regency terraces like a great ocean liner berthed against the seafront. Built straight after Coates's Isokon Building, this speculative block of 72 luxury flats brought a catalogue of modern firsts to the English seaside — including England's first purpose-built penthouse suites.

Embassy Court is Grade II* listed. After decades of decline and a long battle over its future, it was rescued and restored in the 2000s by Conran & Partners, and once again stands as one of the finest twentieth-century buildings in Britain.

Read the full Embassy Court architecture guide

 

Modernism that docked on the seafront

 

Embassy Court's power comes from its horizontality. Wells Coates composed the building as a series of stacked, cantilevered concrete bands — the partly enclosed sun balconies that wrap every flat — so the whole façade reads as a sequence of clean horizontal tiers rising from the promenade. It was the architectural language of the 1930s ocean liner, planted in the middle of Regency Brighton, and the comparison was made from the moment it opened. Coates set his white modern block directly against the palace-fronted terraces of Brunswick Town: a manifesto for the new age, in the middle of the old.

This architectural object captures the building's defining south-facing elevation:

• the stacked, cantilevered bands of sun balconies that give Embassy Court its ocean-liner character
• the subtle vertical rhythm of the slightly curving sun-room windows
• the recessed upper floors that form the celebrated penthouses, crowned by the roof sun terrace
• the bold horizontal massing that set modernism against the Regency seafront

 

Why Embassy Court works as an architectural object

 

The building translates with exceptional power into object form because its architecture is governed by:

• proportion, line, and horizontality rather than applied ornament — exactly what survives reduction to plaster
• a clean, strongly horizontal silhouette that reads from across a room just as it does from across the beach
• the abstract, planar quality of its rendered concrete bands, which catch a raking light beautifully

Rather than functioning as a literal miniature, this object captures the architectural character of Embassy Court.

 

Craft, materials, and finish

 

Each Embassy Court object is hand-cast in fine plaster with etched metal detailing and finished by hand in our West Sussex studio — just a short distance up the coast from the building itself. A raking light from one side will throw the stacked horizontal bands into relief, exactly as the sun does along the seafront.

The result is an object that sits naturally within:

• architectural and design studios
• curated interiors
• bookshelves and workspaces

It appeals to architects, lovers of modernism and 1930s design, admirers of Brighton and Hove, and anyone who has walked the seafront and stopped at the sight of this white ship among the Regency terraces. It pairs especially well with our Isokon Building model — the two great Wells Coates blocks side by side, one discreet, one bold.

 

A Brighton icon, restored

 

Embassy Court opened to acclaim in 1935 and drew a glamorous clientele — Max Miller, Rex Harrison, Terence Rattigan and Diana Dors among them — before a long decline from the 1970s left it derelict and locally nicknamed "Nausea Court." Its rescue, driven by its own leaseholders and carried out by Sir Terence Conran's practice in the 2000s, returned the cream-rendered façade to its 1930s glory. It stands today as a symbol of the wider revival of 1930s modernism in Britain — and, for us, as a piece of local Sussex heritage.

 

Product details

 

• Subject: Embassy Court, Kings Road, Brighton and Hove, BN1 2PY (south-facing façade)
• Architect: Wells Coates
• Developer: Maddox Properties
• Structural engineer: Felix Samuely (FJ Samuely & Partners)
• Architectural style: International Modernism
• Completed: 1935
• Designation: Grade II* listed
• Designed and made by: Chisel & Mouse

 

Learn more about Embassy Court

 

For the full story of the building — Wells Coates and the arrival of modernism on the English seaside, England's first penthouses, the long decline, and the restoration that brought it back — see our in-depth architecture guide:

Embassy Court Architecture: Wells Coates and the Modernist Landmark on Brighton Seafront