First line – Andrea Popyordanova

“With regard to properties by the sea, it is necessary to make several important clarifications. […] There is a significant difference between a property with a sea view and a property on the first line. The term “first line” means that the building is built in close proximity to the beach and there are no other buildings between the building and the sea, so nothing obstructs the direct sea view from any floor of the building.” (Bulgarian property services)

FIRST LINE is an independently published picture book about 62 swimming pools with a sea view. The book is about a walk, as a method of getting to know a place and looking into it, and covers the stretch from the north to the south end of the bay of Sunny Beach, moving only along the coastline.

The publication lists all sorts of landscape elements, in the order in which they appear during the walk. Among them are mainly pools located meters from the sea water, posters with tempting panoramas of the sea, golden sand, numerous artifacts, sculptures, over 300 types of palm trees, artificial, but also natural, mini-golf courses with fountains, rock gardens, columns, terraces, arches, all of them resembling various historical eras.

Among the drawings, texts also appear – the advertising announcements of the hotels on the first line in Sunny Beach. They promise the ideal vacation, exoticism, luxury, an unforgettable summer, but not what we find walking along the coast. All these objects and details of the space together create an open-air “museum” in the resort, and the book is the guide to it and to this walk. The publication is also a story about the moment in time when it was possible for all this to materialize on a coastal strip.