Review: Tous à la plage! Villes balnéaires du XVIII^e siècle à nos jours

This was a satisfying exhibition, to the extent that it defined its own story effectively and unfolded in a way that was at once predictable and surprising. Beginning with the theme of health, the visitor was led through the rise of middle-class leisure and seaside urbanism in Europe to the arrival of mass tourism, the seaside summer camps, and the megaprojects of the 1960s and 1970s. A variety of media were well exploited: paintings, posters, models, and films were supported with more personal documents such as photographs, letters, and postcards. This impressive collection of images, documents, and models was first given impetus by Maurice Culot, who in 1980...