The architecture of Manchester demonstrates a rich variety of architectural styles, including Victorian architecture, neogothic, art deco, baroque, neoclassical and deconstructivist. With little pre-17th century history to speak of, Manchester burgeoned as a result of the industrial revolution with the Bridgewater Canal and Manchester Liverpool Road station becoming the first of their type. Today, Manchester is on a provisional list for UNESCO World Heritage site status, with emphasis placed on the city's role in the industrial revolution and extensive canal network.[2]
Engineering developments such as the Manchester Ship Canal symbolised a wealthy and proud Manchester, so too did Mancunian buildings of the Victorian era, the finest examples of which include the neogothic Manchester Town Hall and the John Rylands Library. Many warehouses such as The Great Northern and Watts Warehouse, which were used in the industrial revolution, have now been converted for other uses but the external appearance remains mostly unchanged so to does the city keeps much of its industrial, brooding character.
The 1996 IRA bombing sparked a large regeneration project with new buildings such as Urbis forming a centrepiece of this redevelopment. However, in the last few years there has been a renewed interest in building skyscrapers in Manchester. Beetham Tower was completed in the Autumn of 2006 and houses a Hilton hotel along with a restaurant and residential properties. It is currently the tallest building in the UK outside of London.
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As Manchester expanded due to the industrial revolution, new buildings representing Manchester's standing and growing wealth went hand in hand. A prominent architectural style of the Victorian era was neogothic design. Some of the finest neogothic buildings are in Manchester, including Manchester Town Hall, Gorton Monastery, Manchester Assize Courts (demolished in the 1950s because of unrepairable damage resulting from the Manchester Blitz) and John Rylands Library.
Manchester Town Hall, designed in a Gothic Revival architecture style was the most notable Victorian era building. Completed in 1877, the interior of the building has various statues as well as The Manchester Murals which were painted by Ford Madox Brown.
Although the inter-war period covered a short 20-year period, the era saw a number of new buildings which were unique and representative of the prevailing new, architectural movement of the time, art deco. Examples include the Daily Express Building with its dark glass façade and the Midland Bank Building with a tall, castle like structure.
Following World War II, the slow work of rebuilding Manchester began and the transition from warehouse to office blocks became ever more apparent as Manchester's industrial prowess waned. The widely admired[3] Manchester Assize Courts became one of Britain's 'lost buildings'[4] had to be demolished in 1957 following unrepairable damage which was suffered during the Manchester Blitz. It has been said that few aesthetically memorable buildings were constructed in Manchester in the fifties and sixties,[5] but there were some which were grew into important landmarks for the city.
The first major building to be constructed following the war was the unpretentious Granada Studios complex in 1954. Commissioned by Sidney Bernstein and designed by Ralph Tubbs, it would become home to Granada Television with the site centring around the Granada House. The studios notable feature was the lattice tower and the red, neon Granada TV signage in period font.
The CIS Tower was opened in 1962, a 118m office block which became the tallest building in the United Kingdom. The tower would become home to The Co-operative Group and was designed to showcase Manchester and the Co-operative movement. The skyscraper was clad in photovoltaic cells in 2005.
Following the decline of the cultural Madchester movement in music in the early 1990s and then the 1996 bombing, the city had a chance to reinvent itself. Following the cities music fame, sport and architecture was at the heart of the new Manchester. Manchester has seen new, often tall buildings being built, many in a post-modernist style incorporating a glass façade into their design. Arguably, the most well known building of this type came in the form of a skyscraper in 2006 - the 168m Beetham Tower which was designed by architect, Ian Simpson. Other buildings to have incorporated glass into their design include Urbis, No. 1 Deansgate, Manchester Civil Justice Centre.
The credit crunch in 2008 created a dearth of funding large scale building developments across the United Kingdom. Proposals such as skyscrapers, such as Albany Crown Tower and Piccadilly Tower remained on the drawing board because of a lack of capital. The Co-operative Group have started work on NOMA, Manchester, a £800m redevelopment over a 20-acre site in the north of Manchester city centre.
Noteworthy bridges include the Store Street Aqueduct, Hulme Arch Bridge and Trinity Bridge. Trinity Bridge was designed by Spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava in 1994 and was one of his earliest bridge works. The bridge links Manchester and Salford with a bridge across the River Irwell, which in turn marks the boundary between both cities. The bridge has a typical Calatrava design utilising straight white lines as a structure, and is dominated by the rotund pylon which rises to 41m.[6]
Hulme Arch Bridge was completed in 1997 as part of the ongoing regeneration of Hulme, and is designed with a arch bridge which reaches a height of 25m. The Store Street Aqueduct was opened in 1798 and was designed to carry the Ashton Canal across Store Street. It is one of the earliest aqueducts in the United Kingdom and one of the first to implement a skewed arch bridge design.
Within Manchester there are monuments to numerous people and events that have helped to shape the city and influence the wider community. There are two large squares that hold many of Manchester's public monuments. There is Albert Square in front of the Town Hall which has monuments to Prince Albert, Bishop James Fraser, Oliver Heywood, William Ewart Gladstone and John Bright, and Piccadilly Gardens which has monuments dedicated to Queen Victoria, Robert Peel, James Watt and the Duke of Wellington.
Notable monuments elsewhere in the city include the Alan Turing Memorial situated in Sackville Park, adjacent to Sackville Street, which remembers the father of modern computing. A monument to American President Abraham Lincoln stands in the eponymous Lincoln Square. It is the work of George Gray Barnard and was presented to the city by Mr & Mrs Charles Phelps Taft of Cincinnati, Ohio. The statue marks the part that Lancashire had to play in the cotton famine of 1861–1865 and the American Civil War. Within the entrance of Watts Warehouse on Portland Street stands a bronze statue of a World War I soldier, "the Sentry", by the Sheffiled-born sculptor Charles Sargeant Jagger; it was erected as a memorial to the staff of S & J Watts & Co who died in the war.
Thomas Heatherwick's B of the Bang was a 56 metres (184 ft)-high metal sculpture commissioned to commemorate the 2002 Commonwealth Games. Constructed in 2005 near the City of Manchester Stadium in the Eastlands area of the City, the sculpture was beset by structural problems and eventually dismantled in 2009.[7]
Manchester has a number of busy squares, plazas and shopping streets. Many of Manchester city centre's streets are now pedestrianised with numerous other streets having Metrolink or Bus priority, thus driving around Manchester City Centre is made complicated.
One of the oldest thoroughfares is Market Street. This was originally called Market Stede Lane. Much of the medieval street pattern around the original Market Place was cleared as part of 1970s developments. Ancient streets such as Smithy Door were lost forever. One ancient street to survive is Long Millgate, which led north from the old Market Place. This winding lane, crossing Fennel Street and leading on to Todd Street (formerly Toad Lane - thought to be a corruption of T'owd Lane - The Old Lane), is now an attractive and peaceful thoroughfare, bounded by gardens.
Whitworth Street is a broad 19th century route, stretching from Deansgate to London Road, running parallel to the Rochdale Canal for much of its route, and intersecting with Princess Street, Chepstow Street and Albion Street along the way. The street is bounded by impressive brick buildings, formerly warehouses, but now mostly residential developments.
Mosley Street runs roughly parallel to Portland Street, Whitworth Street and Deansgate, leading from Piccadilly Gardens to St Peter's Square. The street is closed to general traffic, with the Metrolink running trams along its route.
Another Victorian addition to the city's street pattern was Corporation Street, which cut through slums to the north of Market Street and provided a direct link from Cross Street (and the newly constructed Albert Square) to the routes north of the city.
To the south-east of the city centre, Wilmslow Road which runs from Oxford Road, is the hub of much student life and is home to Manchester's curry mile.
Other notable places in Manchester include: Great Northern Square, Lincoln Square, Spring Gardens, Cathedral Gardens, Sackville Gardens, New Cathedral Street, the Gay Village and Chinatown.
The Manchester School of Architecture is jointly administered by the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University. Architects born or educated in Manchester include Roger Stephenson, Stephen Hodder, Norman Foster and Tom Bloxham. Architect's practices with a significant office presence in Manchester include the BDP,[8] Urban Splash and Arup who are based on the 8th floor of St James Building on Oxford Road.[9]
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