Listed Art Deco pavilion gets new lease on life as pleasure palace

The restoration of the building, costing £8m, has taken 20 months, and has had the support of Eddie Izzard and the architects Norman Foster and Richard Rogers.

The opening will be celebrated by ballroom dancers, music from Caged Baby and Eva Abrahams, and a contemporary art exhibition.

The Grade I listed Pavilion, designed by Eric Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff, is the most important pre-war Modernist building in the country. A local group of amateurs and professionals lobbied for the restoration of the building, then owned by the local authority.

With money from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Arts Council, the welded steel building with its signature flat roof and acres of grass overlooking the English Channel, will - 70 years after first opening - fulfil its original role as a pleasure palace.