Portmeirion

28th September 2009

Last year I visited Wales and went to Portmeirion for the day. I had heard a lot about the gated community and it definitely lived up to my expectations. Whilst visiting Wales I found it to be an architecturally depressing area with a lot of dark colours, slate and pebble dash used. This is the main reason why I think Portmeirion - with its multicoloured scenery - is so alluring. 

Portmeirion nestles on the northern coast of Wales, but there's nothing Welsh about its architecture. The hillside overlooking the bay is scattered with candy-coloured houses which emulate sunny Mediterranean landscapes.

Modest stucco bungalows are decked with arcaded porches, balustrade balconies, and Corinthian columns. It is almost like 5,000 years of architectural history has been hurled along the shore, without an ounce of symmetry, accuracy, or continuity, all of which are fundamentally wrong - but somehow it works.

Sir Clough Williams-Ellis designed Portmeirion, his passion was with environmental preservation. By building Portmeirion on his private peninsula in Snowdonia, Wales, Sir Clough hoped to show that architecture can be beautiful and fun... without defacing the landscape. Moreover, Portmeirion became an exercise in historic restoration. Many of the structures were pieced together from buildings destined for demolition. The village became known as a repository for fallen architecture.

Portmeirion is now owned by a charitable trust, and has always been run as a hotel, which uses the majority of the buildings as hotel rooms or self-catering cottages, together with shops, a cafe, tea-room, and restaurant. Portmeirion is today a top tourist attraction in North Wales.

Below are more Photographs I took of the village, I couldn't have asked for better weather!