Architecture of Manchester
[1] Manchester is noted for its warehouses, railway viaducts, cotton mills and canals – remnants of its past when the city produced and traded goods.
The Industrial Revolution made Manchester a wealthy place but much of the wealth was spent on lavish projects that were often at the expense of its population.
City centre regeneration coincided with the property boom of the 2000s with one urbanist remarking on "the sheer number of cranes and the noise of the building work, with the sound of pneumatic drills in my ears wherever I went".
Manchester was on a provisional list for UNESCO World Heritage site status emphasising the city's role in the Industrial Revolution and its extensive canal network.
[3] Castlefield, west of the city centre is Britain's only Urban Heritage Park that aims to preserve the character and history of the area.
The Roman fort, Mamucium, on the sandstone bluff at the junction of the Rivers Irwell and Medlock gave Castlefield its name.
[13] Shambles Square, created after the 1996 bombing with the timber-framed Old Wellington Inn,[14] Sinclair's Oyster Bar[15] and the Mitre Hotel[16] preserves some of the city's oldest buildings of their type.
In the 16th century domestic cloth weaving became important, and an Act of Parliament regulated the length of Manchester Cottons (which were actually woollens) to 22 yards.
[21] Another survival is row of three-storey town houses built in red brick with sandstone dressings, now used as shops and offices in Princess Street.
[28] The canals shaped the layout of the city attracting wharves and warehouses, transporting coal and heavy materials and provided water to run steam-engines.
[44] Manchester's first town hall, designed by Francis Goodwin, was constructed during 1822–25 in the neo-classical style with a screen of Ionic columns.
Edward Walters designed the Free Trade Hall in the 1850s as a monument to the Peterloo Massacre and Manchester's pivotal role in the Anti-Corn Law League.
Waterhouse's exteriors used large quantities of "self-washing" terracotta to provide rich ornament in the polluted atmosphere and after 1880 his interiors were decorated with moulded and glazed faience both manufactured by the Burmantofts Pottery.
[52] Worthington's last commission in the city was the flamboyant Flemish Gothic Nicholls Hospital, an orphanage that is now part of The Manchester College and has similarities with the Minshull Street Courts.
[55] London Road Fire Station of 1906 was designed in the Edwardian Baroque style by Woodhouse, Willoughby and Langham in red brick and terracotta.
Manchester Town Hall Extension between St Peter's Square and Lloyd Street was built between 1934 and 1938 to provide accommodation for local government services.
[58] Its eclectic style was designed to be a link between the ornate Gothic Revival Town Hall and the classical rotunda of the Central Library built four years earlier.
Designed by J.W.Beaumont in red brick with details in matching terracotta,[67] it was transferred to the university and changed its name to the Whitworth Art Gallery in 1958.
[70] The John Rylands Library by Basil Champneys on Deansgate, designed like a church in the Decorated Gothic style with Arts and Crafts details, opened in 1900.
[74] Early Victorian warehouses were built of brick with stone dressings typically up to six storeys tall with basements and steps to the front door.
[76] Warehouses were built into the 20th century, many in the highly decorated Edwardian Baroque style leaving the city with a legacy of some of the finest buildings of this type in the world.
The brown-brick Redfern Building on the Co-operative Estate is an individualistic interpretation of the Art Deco, although Pevsner believed it shared more in common with 'Dutch Brick modernism'.
A. Hansom designed the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Name of Jesus in Chorlton-on-Medlock which was completed 1928 by Adrian Gilbert Scott[90] and E.W.
Nikolaus Pevsner considered it "the only religious building in Lancashire that would be indispensable in a survey of twentieth century church design in all England.
"[94] After World War II, work to rebuild war-damaged Manchester began and the transition from warehouse to office blocks accelerated as the city's industrial prowess waned.
Notable monuments elsewhere in the city include the Alan Turing Memorial in Sackville Park commemorating the father of modern computing.
The city's principal war memorial is the Cenotaph in St Peter's Square, designed by Edwin Lutyens after his original in London.
Contemporary architects born or educated in Manchester include Roger Stephenson, Stephen Hodder, Norman Foster.
[105] Practices with regional offices include Arup, Aedas, AHR, Aecom, Broadway Malyan, Capita Symonds and Chapman Taylor.
[106] More recently, practices such as Denton Corker Marshall, Mecanoo, Hawkins\Brown, Feilden Clegg Bradley and Donald Insall Associates have opened offices in Manchester since the Great Recession recovery.
