Out with the old

After Construction, Tourism is Britain's biggest industry. In London we've been spoiled by the astonishing architectural and cultural successes of international tourist attractions such as the Tate Modern and the British Museum's Great Court. The Eden project in Cornwall demonstrates that design energy does not just exist in London, but the theory that good design pays has a long way to go before it reaches operators at the smaller end of the market.

Increasing numbers of Britons are now taking a summer break in the UK as well as travelling somewhere where sunshine is guaranteed, yet the domestic tourist industry does not reflect their growing sophistication or spending power. Unfortunately, holiday Britain seems to have got itself locked in Ye Olde Worlde land, and it is hard to imagine that planning authorities do not have to take responsibility for this. You can imagine them urging prospective developers to keep it traditional, when what they should say is, use a clever architect. The crisp modernity of a well-made visitor centre can set off, say, the gothic or renaissance qualities of the building being visited. The "heritage" version, however, has exactly the opposite effect.

Much of the attraction of the British rural holiday, especially for the country's town dwellers, is to be found in its villages, most of which have developed organically and are firmly rooted in a particular location. The essence of the local building style is not especially hard to reinterpret, particularly if local materials are used. It needs a certain element of scholarship or observation to respond to window shapes and roof pitches, but new buildings need not be slavish copies of their neighbours.

When you find yourself in a new tourist building, such as a seaside toilet block or a cliff-top cafe, where advantage has been taken of the location to make a brand new, yet complementary building, the effect is uplifting. Simple elements such as thick walls, chunky pieces of timber, or big slate sills, if deployed with a little skill, can help provide something that contributes to the environment, and to a visitor's enjoyment.

Unfortunately, what you usually find is a new building that tries to look as if it has been converted from a Victorian stable block. This usually features exposed black-stained gang-nail trusses with sections too small to be attractive, supporting dark grey concrete tiles and ogee plastic gutters. This tends to be accompanied by heritage concrete paving and unsympathetic window openings in an external wall that is too thin. The interiors are decked out with bits of tack-on flummery from Wickes and Do It All and the results, visible from Cumbria to Cornwall, are neither decent old buildings nor good new ones.

Unfortunately, holiday Britain seems to have got itself locked in Ye Olde Worlde land

It's bad enough that this sort of dross is slung up by builders in places that people don't make any special effort to visit. When you find it slap bang in the middle of places that people are visiting specifically because of their unique siting or appearance, the effect is doubly depressing.

This "kiss-me-quick" aesthetic is not endemic in other European resorts. Italian hill towns can somehow cope with striking modern buildings that accommodate mundane facilities in the middle of seriously antique towns; the tourist in France cannot help but be struck by the way everything from sandwiches to diesel is sold from stylish enclosures, which really add to the gaiety of the nation.

One has to expect the sort of rural building detritus that follows in the wake of caravan sites and the like, but at least nothing, apart from the view, is destroyed. Most of the Britain's prettiest villages have taken 1000 years to evolve, and although they are more likely to be lived in by website designers than fishermen, the magic that visitors seek is to be found in something comprehensible in the actual buildings.