Casino, Pleasure Beach, South Shore Blackpool

The new Casino at Blackpool is a large circular, two-storied structure with a flat roof for sun-bathing and for viewing others doing the same on the pleasure beaches and I suppose even the distant sea, and there is an exciting tower with an outside corkscrew staircase. Inside there are restaurants, banqueting halls, bars and games rooms, but no mention of dancing. I am sure dancing rather than banqueting is in the spirit of the building, which is one of Joseph Emberton’s happiest efforts in making this most unattractive resort really attractive. If only the Corporation would hand the whole town over to him, and especially let him design their famous, but really rather infamous, illuminations, what a really happy place it might be instead of what it is, a piece of excellent seaside spoilt by the ugliest buildings in England, built in the hardest red brick. That masses of working people in the Midlands and North think it something else shows what harm advertising can do to the natural good taste of Englishmen. (Reilly) [Architects’ Journal 18 January 1940 page 101]