It is said that architect Richard Seifert influenced London’s skyline more than Sir Christopher Wren.
He designed the imposing modernist icon Centrepoint, opposite Tottenham Court Road Tube station, and Tower 24 in the City.
The Zurich-born designer also left his legacy on the South Coast.
The residential towerblock Sussex Heights dominates the Brighton skyline in the same way as his London designs.
That ubiquity is what prompted Eddie and Emily Hepburne-Scott to begin photographing the 102-metre building, which is among the highest on the South Coast.
“You can’t miss it,” says Eddie. “You can see it from so many different spots in Brighton. I’ve lived here for 18 years and grown fond of it. What makes it special is that it looks so different at different times.”
Seen from the east at dawn, the building takes on a yellow hue from the rising sun. By day it is bright white and mirrors the cliffs along the coast. At night it seems to go salmon pink with the sunset.
“Some days it looks industrial and Russian and other days it could be out of Blade Runner.
“It’s a massive golden pillar that soaks up whatever is going on around it.”
Sussex Heights has special meaning for Eddie and Emily. The pair met when Eddie was studying photography at the University of Brighton. At that time, in the mid-1990s, he lived on the building’s 15th floor.
“WhenI first came to Brighton, Iwanted to live in a Regency terrace but I eventually moved in there and learned to love it.
“I’ve not been back inside since.”
So when Emily, an art and photography teacher, suggested they take some photos and put together an exhibition loosely based on the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai’s 36 Views Of Mount Fuji, Eddie jumped at the chance.
A commercial photographer who has taken pictures of Bobby Gillespie and Franz Ferdinand, Eddie fancied a change from portraiture.
“After photographing musicians it’s refreshing to photograph an inanimate object.
“It was Emily’s idea and the main thing was working together on something, with no deadlines and no boundaries apart from our own ideas.”
Hokusai made landscape prints with horizontal framing of Mount Fuji in different seasons and from different viewpoints.
The landmark has religious and cultural significance for the Japanese. But the work inspired Emily because the prints are about more than the mountain.
“There might be waves or architectural details in the foreground,with the mountain in background, which makes it about the place and time rather than the mountain.
“For us, Sussex Heights is always there but it’s really about Brighton. We were trying to get a sense of place and of where we are, a homage to our home rather than a building.”
Among the 36 prints – plus contact sheets, some larger pieces and a joiner photograph inspired by David Hockney – there are shots from the Downs, the beach near Volk’s Railway and Churchill Square.
Emily enjoyed taking in the cityscape from the Downs, where it could be contrasted with nature, while Eddie found some artistic zen working in a graveyard, of all places.
“We went out one night and took some pictures from a graveyard.
“It was on Bonfire Night and we were hoping to get fireworks into the picture.
That never happened but we got some good shots and had a great night off from the kids drinking Prosecco.”
Hotel Pelirocco, Regency Square, Brighton, until June 7, open noon to 8pm, free More from The Guide
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