Apollo Pavilion Oakerside Drive Peterlee County Durham
Second time around for the Victor Pasmore Pavilion – having been here in 2021.
Children sitting on the Apollo Pavilion 1973 © The Pasmore Estate
The idea for the Apollo Pavilion was the culmination of Victor Pasmore’s involvement with the planning and design of the new town of Peterlee in County Durham which began in 1954 with his appointment by AV Williams, the General Manager, as a consultant architectural designer to the Corporation. The brief was to inject a new initiative into the new town’s design, which had been limited by practical and financial constraints. The early departure of Berthold Lubetkin from the original design team, and the limitations imposed by building on land subject to underground mining, had led to a deterioration in the quality of the architecture being produced at Peterlee.
Victor Pasmore in front of the grafitti-covered Apollo Pavilion © Durham Record Office
The Apollo Pavilion, created by Victor Pasmore in 1969, is designated at Grade II* for the following principal reasons: Architectural interest: the structure is of very high architectural quality, forming the centrepiece of a registered landscape Artistic quality: the only truly three-dimensional work by the internationally known artist Victor Pasmore, the Pavilion is an abstract work of art, a demonstration of Constructivist ideas on a large scale and an expression of brutalist architecture Setting: the setting of the structure is the centrepiece of the registered Pavilion Landscape and as such survives intact.
Saturday 20th September was a day of persistent rain, we arrived by bus and walked undeterred to the site – here’s what we saw.
Many thanks to Euan Lynn for leading this Modernist walk.
Modern Mooch 
Very Tarkovsky
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