In the economic boom from the 1950s to the 1970s, beach holidays became affordable for the masses. On the Adriatic, Mediterranean, and Atlantic coasts, a gigantic infrastructure was built to create a stage set for the good times. Conradin Frei has photographed these dream factories on the beach for a number of years. He revels in the artifice of these places, their incongruous admixture of nature and civilisation, their crudely eclectic mixture of architectural styles. Dorade Royale is a poetic and playful visual travelogue, whose subtle mastery of colours ironically evokes the elusive utopias of bygone summers.

Conradin Frei (b.1983) is a photographer based in Zurich(CH). Besides his artistic practice he is a freelance photographer working for architecture offices, museums and galleries. Since 2016 he has been a lecturer in the Fine Arts Department of the Zurich University of the Arts.