It was as if a famous person had died

The response of the spectators was fascinating. Hundreds of people gathered to watch, take photographs and speak in hushed tones.

There was a sense of loss and disbelief. It was as if a famous person had tragically and suddenly died.

But, of course, the pier is not a person. It can be remade and restored.

The West Pier Trust has a huge array of architectural material in storage that can be copied and reused. This, together with the wealth of records, architectural drawings and photographs available, means the structure can be faithfully reconstructed and restored.

The smouldering structure revealed the building's simple and elegant engineering. The good news is this framework appears reasonably intact.

It may even have saved the time and money otherwise spent on the dangerous and expensive business of dismantling the pavilion.

Like all fires at sea, it is ironic there was water all around that might have quelled the blaze yet, until the firefighting vessel arrived at midday, none of it could be used.

Pier fires are nothing new. During the last century many pier build-ings suffered a similar fate, including Hastings in 1917 and Worthing in 1933.

Given the lengthy struggle over the future of the pier, and its partial collapse earlier this year, it is not surprising some people despair, arguing the pier should be demolished or left to the elements and the starlings.

Such arguments ignore the real meaning of a structure like the West Pier. It is much more than smouldering metal and ashes. Its essence is more difficult to define.

Architecturally it is one of the best Victorian and Edwardian pleasure piers. The structure seems a cohesive and organic whole, despite the half a century it took to build.

As English Heritage recently said, the West Pier was one of the most significant and characteristic of all Victorian buildings and a piece of Victorian engineering comparable to the great works of Brunel or the Stephensons.

But its real uniqueness is its capacity to entertain and interest. The pier provides Brighton's incomparable sea-front view, ever-changing according to the sea and weather.

The pier is an irreplaceable structure, hugely important for Brighton and an icon of seaside architecture worldwide. For that reason, as much as the spectacle, thousands of people flocked to wonder and grieve over the collapse and the fire.

We should, though, celebrate the history of the pier and especially the pier head pavilion.

When it opened in 1866, the West Pier was an open-decked promenade pier designed for a walk over the sea and the chance to breath the health-giving ozone. The pavilion was added in 1893 as part of a transformation into a pleasure pier.

With an exterior echoing the oriental design that makes Brighton's architecture famous, it was built on the widened and strengthened pier head.

For the first four decades of the 20th Century, the pavilion provided an all-year round programme of plays, musicals and pantomimes. Outside, there were aquatic entertainers and professional divers, paddle steamer excursions and public swimming from the bathing station at the pier head.

The West Pier was a hugely popular palace of seaside entertainment visited by more than two million people a year.

Ever eager to respond to new fashions, a new sunbathing terrace was added in the Thirties. By then, the pier was becoming more of a funfair.

This change was completed when the pier reopened after the Second World War.

Originally, the intention was for a building with an imposing oriental dome, echoing the Royal Pavilion. But as the chairman of the West Pier company reported to a shareholders' meeting in 1893, the (Brighton) corporation would not give way, and, after considerable delay, the company was compelled to adopt a "flattened, dish-cover roof".

The pavilion was designed as a flexible space for entertainment with an emphasis on music. As with the pier's earlier buildings, the framework was almost iron. It consisted of wrought-iron girders supported upon upwards of 100 ornamental cast-iron columns.

Inside the grand hall, according to a correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, "the elegant interior is not lavishly decorated, but the colouring, in two shades of green, relieving white, is pretty and the whole tone of the place very cheerful and bright".

The pier company was eager to push at the boundaries of how the pavilion could be used. One innovation in 1894 was the Brighton Pet Dog Show, the first occasion a dog show had been held on the broad briny.

The enlarged and transformed pier head was used especially for public swimming, displays of professional diving and aquatic entertainments and the extension of the paddle steamer excursion business.

By the Twenties, the bay of the pier, within the landing stages, was the venue for the aquatic sports element of the Brighton Carnival, taking its inspiration from the Nice carnival, held in early summer.

As part of the 1923 carnival, the pier proper was used for the ladies' bathing costume pageant and parade.

In 1903, the pavilion was converted into a theatre with 1,076 seats. The most popular stage shows returned year after year, including The Ghost Train, A Little Bit Of Fluff and Pygmalion.

The theatre was not to reopen after the Second World War. A new floor was inserted, dividing the auditorium space. The ground floor housed an indoor funfair.

Upstairs, the relics of Victorian and Edwardian decoration were removed or boarded over and the space given a plain Festival of Britain makeover.

By the Sixties, all was not well with the pier or seaside Brighton. Trade ebbed away from both. Visitor numbers declined and the pier's income fell.

The ownership of the pier changed and, amid intense political wrangles, in 1970 the pier head was sealed off and closed to the public for "safety reasons".

It was threatened with demolition. The whole pier closed in 1975. But the structure was saved by local people supporting the We Want The West Pier campaign. Few would have predicted the blaze of 2003.