Modern Manchester Buildings (2)

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.

Back to Top

Bank House

Former Bank of England Northern Headquarters
Portland Street, Manchester
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.

Back to Top

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.

Back to Top

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.

Back to Top

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.

Above and below: the nearly completed Urbis building

Enter your search terms Submit search form   Web www.manchester2002-uk.com