ADMINISTRATION:
Photos by John Moss
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Modern
Manchester Buildings (2)
Continuing with
some of Manchester's 20th century buildings. |
Aytoun Library
& Computer Centre, UMIST
Manchester
Metropolitan University Business School
Opposite the UMIST Aytoun Campus and dominating the corner of
Aytoun Street and Whitworth Street, this modern white powder
coated aluminium clad building comes as a refreshing change
after some of the less glamorous shoebox styles of the 1960s
which so often blighted the city centre. It stands in front
of an earlier tower block which had been designed by the City
Architect, S G Besant Roberts. The Library was was designed
by the Mills Beaumont Leavey Channon Company and completed in
1993.
Cleverly made to fit into an awkward irregular corner plot,
the sweeping curve of the visible facade offers a most modern
and elegant Art Deco-ish style to Whitworth Street and the original
old UMIST building opposite.
Its continuous horizontal fenestration is quite reminiscent
of Bauhaus design of the mid 1920s, but interpreted in contemporary
terms.
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Bank House
Former
Bank of England Northern Headquarters, Portland Street
Designed by Fitzroy Robinson & Partners in 1971, this twelve
storey fortress like building amply provided that sense of unshakeable
security which the Bank of England sought to convey. Its windows
are in bronze and it is clad in black and white stonework, The
whole tower block stands atop a concrete podium, clad in smooth
polished black granite, reminiscent of a medieval castle battlement.
The Bank of England moved out several years ago, and around
its outer perimeter there is current reconstruction taking place
which, unfortunately, masks most of the lower storey of this
imposing building. A new Tourist Information Centre is being
created at its base.
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County
Hall
Former
Greater Manchester Council Building
On the corner of Portland Street and Aytoun Street stands County
Hall, testament to one of the Great Metropolitan County authorities
which Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher abolished as they grew
ever more powerful. The GMC had been imposed earlier on the
ten towns which still make up the Metropolitan County. Designed
by Fitzroy Robinson & Partners and completed in 1974, it
stands six storeys on top of a commercial podium with shops
and pubs at ground floor level. It is a very typical building
of the period with unbroken horizontal bands of windows and
courses of intervening brickwork with a separated "lid"
of a roof sitting above it like an umbrella.
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Pall Mall
Court
Sun Alliance
Assurance Building, King Street
Somewhat dwarfed by the former NatWest
Building alongside it, award winning Pall Mall Court was
designed by Lionel Brett & Pollen for the Sun Alliance Insurance
Company and completed in 1969. It actually occupies an L-shaped
footprint, wrapping round two sides of the adjacent Norwich
Union Building, with a secluded square which has recently been
developed into shops and cafés. This is an elegant building
which replaced the company's older one on the same site and
was an outstanding building in its day for its bold use of square
boxed bronze framing and all darkened bronze glass walls suspended
on an internal steel and concrete skeleton - it still holds
up well over 30 years later. Parts of the service tower are
clad in blue mosaic, and beneath the building are garages.
Lionel Bret, the design company's chief architect, was President
of the Royal Institute of British Architects in the 1960s. Not
surprisingly, the building (and Norwich Union next door) won
the RIBA awards on completion - obviously entirely coincidental.
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Urbis
The
Museum of the Modern City
City Park, Corporation Street, Cathedral
Gardens, Manchester City Centre. Website: www.urbis.org.uk.
Ultra
modern all glass structure on the edge of the newly named Millennium
Quarter. Billed as a museum of modern Manchester, the world's
very first industrial city. Many interactive displays are planned.
The building was designed by the Ian Simpson Company of Architects
and was awarded as a result of an international competition.
It cost £28 million of which £20 million was a grant
from the Millennium Commission. It's unusual ramp-like shape
makes it stand out and dominate the entrance to Manchester city
centre form Cheetham Hill and Bury in the North. Six of its
floors will house exhibitions of an historic and futuristic
nature. There is a café at ground level and the entrance
foyer will have touch screen displays and video presentations;
a restaurant is planned for the top floor offering panoramic
views across the city skyline.
On
its western side is the newly created plaza, part of the so-called
Cathedral Gardens complex and will offer recreational and performance
areas for the Cathedral and Chethams School of Music which border
it.
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Above and below:
the nearly completed Urbis building
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