On the line of Brighton’s old West Pier, which burned down in 2003, leaving only a charred steel skeleton to brave the wind and weather, a new symbolic structure opened under the name “British Airways i360” in the southern English coastal city in August 2016: a 162-m-high tower with a diameter of only 3.9 m on which a continuously glazed observation pod moves up and down.
The idea for this “vertical pier” between Regency Square and the shingle beach goes back to architects and entrepreneurs David Marks and Julia Barfield, who also conceived the London Eye’s giant wheel at the end of the 1990s and cooperated closely with engineers Jacobs on both projects. (John Roberts)
The idea for this “vertical pier” between Regency Square and the shingle beach goes back to architects and entrepreneurs David Marks and Julia Barfield, who also conceived the London Eye’s giant wheel at the end of the 1990s and cooperated closely with engineers Jacobs on both projects. (John Roberts)