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at risk - going, going, gone
in this section, we aim to highlight modernist treasures great and small, prominent or hardly noticed that are currently at risk to the vagaries of redevelopment...
this month is dedicated to maligned manchester monuments of the post war era, a period declared by the twentieth century society as particularly fragile and vunerable, a situation not helped by the regular antipathy meted out to it both in the popular press and specialist publications.
here we highlight three local monuments that have suffered the indignity of the press...
EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGE OFFICE, AYTOUN ST
E.H. Montague Ebbs/David Thompson 1936-1951
The old UBO office skulks forlornly behind the Malmaison Hotel (once similarly derelict and unkempt) behind Piccadilly Station. Described in the Manchester Pevsner Guide as ‘brick, thin and cheap’, this austere beauty has been left to rot since its closure in 1993. Unloved, even reviled by the public (mainly it seems for its usage more than its actual design) it’s been gutted, partly demolished, squatted and long earmarked for demolition. Plans for yet another Simpson 40 floor glass tower by the now defunct Albany Crown have fallen to the recession, so surely this is the perfect time to reassess the pitiful state of post war architecture in this city and rehabilitate rather than demolish this quietly elegant beast.
The UBO was designed in 1936 but not built until after the war and completed in 1951. It had been intended to be much more of a grand edifice, traces of which can be spied in some of its typically thirties flourishes, especially the curves on the side elevation and the porthole windows reminiscent of a glamorous ocean liner, but the war and subsequent austerity measures put paid to any lavish materials or luxury finish.
Despite all this, perhaps even because of it, it is effectively the only building of its size and scale in the city –try the Bentley estate in Hulme (the much loved Redbricks) or the University Dental Hospital for similar austerity period survivors - and it deserves to take its place with such Modernist landmarks as the Baltic and the Tate Modern, two other distinctly monumental beasties re-envisioned to truly iconic effect.
The loss of this building would seriously impoverish the architectural legacy of our cityscape. Manchester needs to think big and find a use for the UBO before it’s too late. Its key position in the gateway to the city behind Piccadilly Station and the Metrolink should guarantee its successful conversion rather than demolition, its austere grandeur adding to the rich architectural history of the area, fitting neatly next to the gorgeously fin de siècle decadence of the Malmaison and the sexily sinuous Gateway House.
but I guess then someone would have to insist that the long slow decay of the Fire Station across the road was a similar disgrace!
mms rant. at risk. july 2010
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modernist month of may - tales from the red phone box....
our saga of the Red phone booth to coincide with the commissioning of our K6 sound installation running at MOSI throughout FutureEverything festival may 2010, continues with the spectacular roll out of the K6 across the nation in 1935...
K6, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott,
one on every corner, everywhere, 1935 – 1965
THE CLASSIC
designed once again by Sir Giles Gilbert-Scott in 1935 to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of King George V, this was the first truly national or nationwide kiosk, often referred to as the "London" or "English" phone box. it’s the one tourists the world over have their photos taken inside and still evokes the UK landscape whether bustling city or windswept countryside.
that essential tweaking of the K2 can also be spied throughout - the windows give greater visibility with the central panel of each horizontal band being wider that the others, whilst for night use there was an interior light (on a timer). the K6 also featured a writing shelf and, according to the GPO, "combined a smaller exterior with a roomier interior."
about 70, 000 k6’s were installed across the length and breadth of the country from 1936-1965 including four major design changes. boxes from the original 1936 Jubilee Kiosk programme of 8000 boxes have the entry and exit holes for the cable runs on opposite sides of the rear base of the box. from 1939, improved security measures called for a redesign that saw window frames rivetted rather than screwed, improved coin box fixings and the cable runs now brought together on one side of the box. also until 1952 all kiosks bore the Tudor Crown, until the present Queen introduced the St Edward’s crown, the one used for all coronations. this change happened in 1955 affecting all public telephones across the Empire, a useful dating clue for those obsessed by typological ordering.
although we think of the K6 as the red phone booth, there are some notable exceptions - kiosks installed in Hull were not fitted with a crown at all as they were installed by the Hull Corporation & were painted cream. they are also distinguishable by the complete absence of the crown, tudor or otherwise!
meanwhile there were battles fought across the land about the strident red colour, which wasn’t immediately well received and exceptions were made to appease their roll out - boxes for use in areas of outstanding natural beauty, could be painted Dark Battleship Grey with PO red window bars.
these teething problems ironed out the K6 was to dominate the landscape for the next 30 years until the break-up of the gpo and the introduction of the new generation telecom boxes. in reality people increasingly had a phone in their own home, then came the mobile phone, the home computer and wifi, changing the way we communicate yet again, and making the need for these miniature buildings almost entirely obsolete. decommission was inevitable by the late 1980’s. yet the redundant k6 had an army of devotees, and a series of public campaigns led to some protection for some of the stragglers, with around 3000 becoming listed.
nowadays any surviving K6 can be designated a Grade II listed structure. the 4 survivors in city centre Manchester (two in st peters square, one on the corner of deansgate and Liverpool rd, and one on the top of st johns street) fall into this lucky category. they are in a pitiful state despite residing in prominent conservqtion areas of our 'original, modern city'.
pity that marketerrs tag doesnt extend to the truly original & modernistic K6.....
mms rant. at risk. may 2010
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Aldine House, now Riverside, New Bailey Street,
Leach Rhodes Walker, 1966.
Hot on the heels of their quirkily elegant Highland House, LRW’s dominance on the 60’s skyline continued in dramatic style with an entire modernist landscape created for the land commission - 5 interlocking blocks, each 5 storeys in height, comprising aldine, baskerville, cloister and delphine house (reputedly named after modernist typefaces), grouped around a shared courtyard to foster a sense of cohesion and community for the governmental departments moving onto the banks of the Irwell.
inventive as ever, LRW didn’t simply impose as much bulky real estate on the strip of land available to them, but responded to the brief with what cube poetically describes as ‘restraint with expressionism’, incorporating some nifty technical innovations to counter the weathering inherent in the nature of modern buildings along the way. lack of cornices and sills meant water was no longer thrown off the surfaces of walls crafted in this new idiom, whilst joints between cladding allowed water to run down facades and create staining. the challenge for any reputable architectural practice was to reduce the harsh effects of the british climate on these vast expenses of concrete - decorative panels were one recurring solution for many around this time, (seen to brilliant effect in bush hammered brown concrete with abstract reliefs by William Mitchell at the humanities building (bdp) behind the academy on oxford rd) but here ribbing was tried instead to striking visual effect. it’s hard to imagine conventional windows here – they would be lost in this bold yet playful vertical stripe - so those commodore-pet computer screen funnel holes on Victoria bridge resurface, but revved to the max to hold their own in this new context.
this is 60’s modernism at its best, a glimpse of utopia articulated through the collaboration of new materials, technical innovation, excellent design and artistic expression. we’re not the only ones in awe of this fabulous yet often overlooked Salford gem - cube’s city walking tour enthuses suitably with this description;
‘counterbalancing pre cast sculptural concrete panels and articulated round cornered stair towers with a miesian black marble pavilion, it neatly counterpoints restraint with expressionism in a scheme that was envisaged would range from 5 storeys to 16’,
whilst over on archisnaps griffin wagers that LRW lavished the development with meticulous care because it was earmarked as their new home – the black marble pavilion has been LRW’s headquarters ever since.
even today, glimpsed behind glass and officious security, who won’t let you pause to peer in let alone whip out a camera, their attention to detail and typically generous landscaping can be appreciated, a haven of peaceful nooks next to the soothing lullaby of water features, artwork and vibrant sculptures, an oasis in the city and the demands of the workplace.
ignored for decades, partially by living on the salford side of the river which escaped the full brunt of post bomb demolition / regeneration fever, dark days glowered recently over the complex when bruntwood bought it with the intention of demolishing elements including the pavilion itself, to make way for a five-star hotel and a 30 storey residential tower next to the Lowry Hotel, as well as 100,000 sq feet of office space, split between two buildings. and in a bizarre twist of fate, LRW were the firm commissioned to overhaul or eradicate their own baby.
manchester confidential took up the sorry tale, whilst Architects' Journal, May 24, 2007, predicted widespread uproar at the loss of this ‘iconic’ masterpiece.
the economic ‘downturn’ seems to have seen bruntwoods plans temporarily shelved, with the site given a lick of paint and rebranded riverside west, complete with some hi spec glossy images to drool over.
however watch this space as this side of the river is on the up and the safety of this little piece of 60’s lunar-vision can’t fully be taken for granted....
mms rant. at risk. april 2010
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Now is a good time to Save the Odeon!
The planning permission for the demolition of the Odeon, Oxford Street, Manchester is about to run out.
The developer needs to reapply. We can all put pressure on the planners to reject this. We now have a second chance to stop the demolition.
You still have time to comment on the application. We all need to comment on the application - online or in writing.
Click here to go to the application:
If you click on Submit Comments and tick the 'I live outside the area' button you can leave comments. (You don’t have to live outside the area to use this box, but it’s a simpler way to the comments form.)
We need to make comments that are relevant to the planning process and the main arguments should be along the lines of: (put them into your own words!)
a) The original application was fundamentally flawed:
It was too big. It overwhelms all the buildings around it. The mass and elevations create a large white box - totally at odds with the materials and form of its neighbours.
The original application was made when the Manchester property market was over heated. There was little evidence of the demand for this large amount of office space at the time and, as the economy is hardly out of recession, the argument for increased office space is questionable. There is an over supply of office space in Manchester.
b) The original building makes a positive contribution to the Conservation Area.
The new office development and the demolition of the Odeon does nothing to contribute to the Conservation Area in which it sits, new developments should preserveor enhance the historic character of the area, this proposal does neither. This proposal should therefore not receive Conservation Area consent.
Little or no attempt was made to find an alternative use for the building. In the mean time the Royal Opera have sought a home in Manchester and the Library Theatre is temporarily homeless, both these could have been ‘potential’ new occupants.
c) The building should not be left to decay into an eyesore – if planning permission is granted, the council should enforce the developer to act on it - and not merely allow the developer to use planning permission as a temporary holding position, in order for them to wait until they chose to maximize their own profitability from their asset.
Click here to go to the application. please help to persuade the planners that the time has come for a different approach and a rethink on this iconic Manchester building.
mms rant. at risk. march 2010
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Preston Bus Station, Preston,
Ingham & Wilson of BDP, 1969 – present...
40 miles north of Manchester is recently citified Preston. The former milltown has ambitions to be the ‘third city of the North West’ (sorry about that, Salford) and, for over 10 years, it has planned to build Tithebarn, a new retail ‘quarter’. To clear the site for redevelopment the Council and the developers want to demolish Preston Bus Station. This is an iconic modernist masterwork. It was designed by Keith Ingham and Charles Wilson of Building Design Partnership, which was then based in Preston, and it opened in 1969. The building houses an 80 bay bus station and accommodation for 1,100 cars. It was designed so that extra storeys could be added above the 4-5 parking levels. Preston is a regional public transport hub. Until the 1980s it was the centre of Ribble Motor Services whose bus empire stretched from Carlisle to Trumpet Street garage in Manchester.
The building is made of reinforced and precast concrete but it seems to hover above a glazed ground level which is especially exciting when lit at dusk. The curved form of the parking lot floor edges helps to reduce loadings; they prevent cars from hitting the vertical wall. The curve creates a dramatic organic, almost sculptural, structure. The cover balustrade protects passengers from the weather by allowing double desk buses to penetrate beneath the lower parking level. Originally the station was carefully detailed and signed, in Ingham’s characteristic attention to materials, design and graphics. Preston Council’s poor management, especially since bus deregulation, has led to a sad decline in the condition of this fine structure. A recent attempt to have the bus station listed, which was warmly supported by English Heritage, was turned down by the minister Margaret Hodge because she claimed the building was not ‘fit for purpose’.
The terrier-like Twentieth Century Society is seeking a review of this decision because they argue fitness isn’t a sufficient ground for not listing. But there’s a £700 million development at stake so you can guess what may be the station’s fate. It’s just about hanging on now but you may need to see it now before it’s reduced to a pile of rubble. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Many thanks to Aidan Turner-Bishop,Chair of the North West Group of the Twentieth Century Society, for this months
AT RISK RANT, FEBRUARY 2010
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The Odeon Cinema, formerly The Paramount, Oxford St,
F. Verity and S. Beverley, 1930 - closed September 2004.
The Odeon, now lying hollow and stripped bare, opened with suitable pomp and ceremony, all faux art deco complete with flattened pilasters and stylized capitals, on Monday 16 October 1930 as The Paramount Theatre, a flashy American import to Oxford St. The architects Verity & Beverley were Paramount's regular architects for their UK enterprise, also responsible for the Paramount Leeds, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Glasgow, Liverpool, Birmingam and Tottenham Court Road, London, and this was completed in record time, accommodating 1400 in the stalls, 650 in the mezzanine and 950 in the grand circle and balcony. Sumptuous and colossal with this seating capacity of 3000, the local press described it as the ‘last word in sound cinematograph entertainment’, but it nevertheless had to turn away over a thousand people on its famous opening night, which pulled out all the stops with a big US release The Love Parade, as well as presenting variety acts, a ‘parade of beauty’ (starlets from the American studio), and the Paramount organ, which dramatically rose up through the stage on the left of the screen.
More lavish and luxurious than other Manchester venues, the Paramount soon became a Mecca for picturegoers, regularly scooping up all the biggest and best new releases, especially those from the Paramount studios, and being the first to offer innovations such as techicolour and wide screen.
By 1940 however Paramount had sold off some of its UK cinemas to the Odeon circuit and so it suddenly became the Odeon, remaining one of the most popular city centre cinemas well into the 1960’s, successfully complementing its screenings with occasional live concerts, such as the Beach Boys, until its long, slow demise started in earnest in the seventies. Like many other picture houses, this was the era that saw successive attempts to lure an audience, seduced into home entertainment with the introduction of television, back into the cinema. It was twinned in 1973, triplexed in 1979, with a further four screens created in 1992. With each adaptation there was a commensurate loss in the original grandeur and architectural integrity of the design. By the end of its life the resulting seven screens were no bigger than many suburban sitting rooms and the introduction of the mega complexes in the nineties were the last straw for the old guard. The cinema was closed in September 2004 due to competition from the AMC Great Northern 16, which had opened nearby in December 2001. Long boarded up, nominally its not yet deceased, but in reality it’s a dead man walking…
The story doesn’t end there. Earmarked for demolition and redevelopment into the inevitable office block with ground floor retail or more likely bar/restaurant use, a campaign to save the Odeon led by the Cinema Theatre Association ensued. Finally in a hotly contested decision, English Heritage dismissed any last minute attempts to list the building, standing by their earlier decision that the building had been too badly mutilated in the course of its life to merit it.
For the long and tragic saga of the attempt to save the Odeon from demolition, read over the emotional and informative trail of comments below the main posting, taking us from 2004 up to the present sorry state of affairs; or try any of Aidan O’Rourke’s popular Manchester forums for the general mood of Manchester’s citizens, many of whom acknowledge the difficulties and inherent tensions in marrying nostalgia and cultural heritage concerns with the contemporary needs of an ever changing urban environment.
***Once again MMS is indebted to voices and narrators far more learned on this topic than ourselves. We have shamelessly adapted the following illuminating sources –
Derek J Southall, Magic in the Dark, Cinema Treasures informative website, and David Slack’s reminiscences on 70mm.com.
Over on flickr the words and gorgeous photos of woody1969 are highly recommended.
mms rant. at risk. january 2010
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As you might have noticed, gentle reader, we have declared an amnesty for the festive season, temporarily relenting on our monthly rants and tirades to bring you three of Mr Eddy Rheads favourite modernist houses of worship.....enjoy this gesture whilst ye may, to prepare yourselves for the challenges of 2010! Ho, ho, ho.....
 
William Temple Memorial Church,Wythenshawe,
George Gaze Pace, 1963-5 - present day
The same could perhaps be said of George Gaze Pace, one of Britain’s finest post war church architects, in that Manchester not has not one but two Pace churches. St Marks in Chadderton is a magnificent building but for originality of design Wythenshawe‘s William Temple Memorial Church, from 1963-65, edges it.
According to Pace’s son, Peter, the design resulted from two years of collaboration between the vicar, the parochial church council and the architect. They worked out from first principles the liturgical arrangement of the new church. Because of budgetary restraints it was necessary to use a simple and economic structural system. At the time of its building some were disturbed by its ‘unnecessarily brutal’ exterior design. Perhaps the location of the church, in Manchester’s largest overspill estate made this necessary, but never the less it is difficult to find other churches with such a distinctive design language.
Internally, the steel girders were used when it was discovered that, because of the swampy site, the planned wooden beams of the original design had to be changed for cheaper steel ones. An extra £2000 was needed for the foundations, hence the substitution of steel girders. Pace stipulated that there should be no plaques attached to the walls for he built his churches only for the Glory of God. The only lettered stone is on the back wall of the church. It has the date of consecration and a symbol, which is Pace’s original sign for the William Temple Memorial Church.
Pace often used furniture from other churches – ‘recycled’ we would say now – to encourage some sacred continuity and to save money. William Temple Church used redundant church benches from old Manchester churches. Deakin quotes a former churchwarden who recalled that, “Whenever we heard of a church being demolished we borrowed Mr Owen’s coal cart and went off to see if we could buy any of the pews. Many times I’ve sat on the back of the waggon, in the pouring rain, with pews, bringing them back to Wythenshawe to be stored until our church building was completed!”
Sometime after the church was opened a fire damaged some of the old pews. With the insurance money all the pews were stripped and limed. Using the old pews from closed inner-city churches was also appreciated by Wythenshavians who felt that, although they had been ‘slum-cleared’, they might be using the same pews in which their ancestors once sat.
*****thanks to Eddy Rhead for text and images - december 2009
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Gateway house,Station Approach, Piccadilly Rail Station,
Richart Seifert & Partners,1967-9
Entering the most difficult period of British architecture, with much of its output loathed by critics and public alike, we daringly present an undisputed icon of the 60’s for this month’s At Risk section….an elegant if slightly faded sinuous sliver of glass, complete with large panels of specially commissioned artworks along the back elevation, much loved by the local and visiting population.
Dominating the entire length of Piccadilly Station approach, Gateway House is probably the visitor's first view of Manchester. Replacing a row of nineteenth century railway warehouses, it was built as part of the 1960’s refurbishment of Piccadilly Station, by Richard Seifert & Partners, and completed in 1969. Nicknamed the lazy ‘S’ and reputedly designed by Seifert from a doodle on a menu, this is undoubtedly one of this controversial architect’s most loveable buildings, one that commands grudging respect even from the hard to please Hartwell, who refers to it in the Manchester Architectural Guide as ‘a very impressive long, sweeping, undulating façade, the horizontals stressed throughout. One of the best office blocks in Manchester, its glittering serpentine shape well suited to the sloping site.’
R. Seifert & Partners, established by Richard Seifert in 1947, became known for several prominent high-rise buildings in London, notably Centre Point and Tower 42 (originally the Nat West Tower) as well as about 500 office blocks throughout Europe. Locally he also designed Hexagon House in Blackley.
In his time, Seifert was widely regarded as having done more to change the skyline of London than any other architect since Sir Christopher Wren and was also Britain's first architect millionaire, but much of his long and prolific career was dogged by controversy and various conservationists battles opposed to his projects. His new Euston Station, completed in 1968 after the unpopular demolition of the Victorian edifice and Euston Arch, was declared by Richard Morrison quite recently in the Times to be
"even by the bleak standards of Sixties architecture, Euston is one of the nastiest concrete boxes in London: devoid of any decorative merit; seemingly concocted to induce maximum angst among passengers; and a blight on surrounding streets. The design should never have left the drawing-board - if, indeed, it was ever on a drawing-board. It gives the impression of having been scribbled on the back of a soiled paper bag by a thuggish android with a grudge against humanity and a vampiric loathing of sunlight".
In fact, the demolition of the old Euston Station building in 1962 is regarded as one of the greatest acts of Post-War architectural vandalism in Britain and attempts to save the building led to the formation of The Victorian Society and heralded in the modern conservation movement. His Guardian obituary in 2001 can be read as a concise history of the postwar building/reconstruction era, despised, maligned, opposed and finally/belatedly celebrated for his contribution to modern architecture. After a lifelong antipathy to his projects, the RFAC (Royal Fine Art Commission) called for the listing of Centre Point in 1993 for its "elegance worthy of a Wren steeple". The Londonist is a concise and highly critical overview of his mark or, as they dub it, stain on their skyline. Well worth a read…
So it’s hard to miss the irony in a recent report in Building Design magazineof plans by current owners Realty Estates for speculative redevelopment of Gateway House by open competition, declaringthe current building “tired”, requiring a major revamp to accommodate modern offices, with the brief to architects a “blank canvas”. Realty is reputedly open-minded on whether to retain or replace the current building, saying “the city council has been very open and did not say we must keep the building. But if the proposal is to demolish it we need a very good reason to do that.” For the full story read the article here:
For more information about the building and its possible redevelopment, visit Save Gateway House on our facebook page, and if like us you love the Lazy ‘S’ please send an email expressing your dismay to those in charge of planning the city!
This is one Seifert that deserves to stay….
mms rant. at risk. november 2009
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This month we are celebrating our 6 month birthday with the launch of our first mini publication, a set of 4 classic modernist Manchester postcards, so it seemed only right to dedicate our features of the month sections to these truly iconic beauties….
The Toast Rack, Manchester University Hollings Campus, Wilmslow Rd,
LC Howitt, 1958 – 60, Grade II listed.
The Toast Rack has to rank as Manchester’s most unusual and audacious building, far more in fact than the much touted Iconic gestures of the 90’s building boom such as London’s famous Gherkin et al. And in 1960 when the "toast rack" opened, the local press and a vocal minority of the general public had plenty to say about it - much of it critical - but even the hard to please renowned architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner proclaimed it as "a perfect piece of pop architecture". Ironic indeed then that this much loved, beautiful and irreplaceable building faces an uncertain future now that MMU have fallen prey to the rampant supercampus epidemic currently sweeping our institutions, abandoning the Hollings campus altogether to move to new doubtless anodyne ‘ikea sheds’ somewhere in Hulme…
The buildings, making up the MMU’s Hollings Campus in the otherwise decidedly leafy Victorian Rusholme, were designed in 1958 by the City Architect L. C. Howitt who was also responsible for re-modelling the interior of Manchester Free Trade Hall after the original was destroyed in WWII, and designing the majestic Crown Courts in Crown Square. Its distinctive shape - a giant toblerone triangle with parabolic concrete arches on top that gives it the look of a great big toastrack - gives the building its ‘pop’ appeal, and that well known nickname indicates the enormous affection that not only former students but the city at large has come to have for this little piece of space age design in the suburbs. As would be expected from an architect of Howitt's calibre, it comes as no surprise to discover that there is also much practicality behind the cute loveable shape. The tapering shape provides different sized teaching spaces for small or large classes, the tailoring workshops were kept separate to minimise noise from the sewing machines, and “The Fried Egg” - a low round building with a circular hall intended for catwalk shows - houses the library and two refectories.
Deservedly this gem of a building received English Heritage listing status in 1998, in keeping with its status as one of the best designs of its era and one of the city’s most cherished buildings; a testimony to a great architect and reflecting the optimism and ingenuity of the late 50’s. For an enthusiastic description plus a short history of the building do read Nothing to See Here, and the affectionate tribute A taste for toast.
mms at risk rant october 2009
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The Alchemist’s Elements,
Hans Tisdall, FaradayBuilding, UMIST campus
Just a 5 minute walk from a fast disappearing Moberly Frieze is another unsung gem, The Elements by Hans Tisdall, adorning the entrance to Harry Fairhurst’s 1967 ChemistryBuilding along Brunswick St, part of the 1960’s university expansion and one of a cluster forming the new Science Quadrangle. Firmly embedded in the streetscape and an integral part of the building, its huge circular reliefs and eye level location make it paradoxically highly visible and taken for granted.
The twentieth century society campaign to highlight, document and preserve what’s left of the post war mural era, points out many instances of neglect and ill-treatment meted out to these public treasures and the Chemistry building’s frieze is a perfect example of such habitual carelessness. Eddy Rhead takes up the story,
‘Unfortunately The Elements has suffered a crude and clumsy intervention. The relief was originally sited on a wall along a small terraced area. Recently, to create a café space at the entrance to the Chemistry building, an extension has been built with the front glass wall dissecting the terrace, and Tisdall's work. Half of The Elements is now inside the café, the other exposed outside. Whilst an effort has been made to save the sculpture and work around it, the piece can no longer be viewed in its full entirety, thus diminishing its impact.
This begs the question that if this work was, for example, a painting, would a wall be placed right down the centre of it, cutting it in half?’
But this isn’t the end of our story – Tisdall created a second mural, a non identical twin just down the road on the UMIST campus, nestled in the entrance of the Faraday Building, also built by Fairhurst and Sons, also a chemistry department and similarly titled. So far so similar until you take a look at the artworks themselves, for where one is robust and muted tones, like a giant raku from Lucie Rie or Hans Coper, the other is a riot of technicolour, a modernist roman mosaic.
It is this shimmering, intricate beauty, the other Alchemist’s Elements, that is the subject of our attention this month, a series of mosaic panels taking up the first two bays of the entrance opposite the Pariser Building, completely transforming its otherwise understated, almost monastic arcade. Like its nearly name sake, The Elements over on Brunswick St, the mural has a direct association to the building’s function as a chemistry department, a depiction of the four classical elements, fire, earth, air and water, long considered the four components of the universe, depicted here in quadrants of vibrantly coloured tesserae, and in the centre of each a golden lozenge, an allusion presumably to the alchemists quest to transform base elements into gold. The alchemist was of course not only the forerunner of the modern day chemist but a sorcerer, a wizard, and whilst alchemy has been overtaken in the sciences it has continued to fascinate and inspire philosophers, artists and writers for its allegorical and magical symbolism, the quest to find the philosophers stone, a metaphor for the search for wisdom, immortality, an enterprise always tinged with a hint of hubris or folly, a reading surely not inappropriate set against the backdrop of a heightened cold war era.
Hans Tisdall (1910 – 1997) was a polymath, a prolific and versatile artist and designer, a common trait it seems of many working in this new field in the public realm. Born Hans John Knox Aufseeser in Munich, he studied at the Munich Academy of Fine Art in 1928 and was then apprenticed to the sculptor Moisey Keegan. He moved to London in 1930 and had a studio next door to Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. Here he produced a body of distinctive 50’s textiles and fabrics and is known as much for his book jackets, font work and illustrations as his sculptural output and lecturing at the Central School of Art and Crafts in London from 1947 to 1975.
The Alchemists Elements is just one mosaic within an exemplary landscape of bold modernism including a magnificent Pasmore, the Hollaway wall and a brace of superb buildings by Manchester architects Cruickshank and Seward and Fairhurst and Sons. Following the amalgamation of Umist and the University of Manchester, and the creation of the unspectacular super campus on Oxford Rd, the fate of this exceptional educational landscape is distinctly uncertain.
The Faraday building ceased to be the home of the university chemistry department in 2007, when students and staff relocated to Brunswick street and the new Biocentre.
mms at risk rant september 2009
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MoberleyTower,Oxford Road,
Beaumont, J. S. & J. W 1960-65 to the present…??
This month the mms is up in arms about the demise of the 60’s tower block – our RIP feature for August is an ode to the beautiful and disgracefully demolished Mathematics Tower, now replaced by an unremarkable squat round house, the absurdly named University Place, that has little to say for itself or the city’s dignity.
Phil Griffins beautifully written defence of the Maths tower ends with this powerful plea and indictment to campus and city planners and we add it here, as it rings true even today as they carry on regardless, demolishing rather than rethinking, with scant regard for either changing attitudes to modernist architecture or a future that incorporates integration and sensitivity to its overall planning.
The all-new University of Manchester is a highly ambitious international teaching establishment, a seat of learning and a cultural paragon. A pity, therefore, that the Estates Department’s first act is to destroy one of its finest inherited buildings, a building that is so clearly a candidate for recycling, intelligent reprogramming and skilful refurbishment. Should not a university founded in 1824, re-invented and reborn in 2004, be the first to demonstrate its commitment to best sustainable practice? Should not the new University of Manchester be the first to challenge notions that a building of quality, barely forty years old, should not be condemned as “unfit for purpose” without other and original purposes first being rigorously tested? Should not an architect with John McAslan’s skill and reputation be the first to fight for the retention, in some appropriately modified form, of a building so relatively young and so architecturally distinctive? God knows, if McAslan doesn’t, who will? If a retired maths lecturer can see grace and beauty in this fine building, surely somebody, somewhere in the office of Alan Gilbert, the President and Vice Chancellor, must recognise that the all new University of Manchester is about to set out on entirely the wrong foot and might easily find itself condemned as unfit for purpose.
Though he is referring to a particular building here, it seemed pertinent if not urgent to draw your attention to the imminent demise of another less celebrated tower block along the road, the unloved Moberly Halls, dowdy sister to the spectacular Maths Tower and easy to overlook or underestimate. In fact as the trail of school boy excitement over on skyscrapercity.com amply demonstrates, demolition is probably happening as I write. No fans there then, as usual….
Moberly Tower is actually 3 buildings, the tower itself a hall of residence, then to the front sits the university refectory pavilion and to the rear, the rather lovely Staff House, perched modestly on its podium, joining forces with the adjacent deco-esque Faculty of Arts to form the quadrangle, whose steps and classical pillars mirror each other, both opening to respective spacious atriums and together sheltering a small but welcome lawn for summer reading.
Quiet and plain in its pale red brick facing, no-one has ever had a good word to say for it – the Manchester Pevsner dismisses it as ‘characterless and deplorably unsubstantial next to Waterhouse’ - yet its gentle charms are there aplenty, the geometric planes of the island design lending elegant views to several directions, not least the large and distinctive relief panel adorning the north face. It’s certainly overpowered by the undeniable glamour of the Waterhouse right next door and perhaps this has been its downfall, a pointless comparison to the aesthetic of a totally different era, as well as the inevitable financial restraints on late 50's architecture. As a result, unlisted and deemed unremarkable by the city council and English heritage, it now sits empty & earmarked for the bulldozer, the tell tale orange curtains and scaffolding erected by the demolition company (Connell bros, experts at felling post war classics – the Maths Tower and Loxford Tower amongst their previous conquests) rapidly swallowing up any hope that it might survive the disastrous ‘unity masterplan’ that has carved up so much of the peculiarly unique cohesion of the two major building phases of the whole campus, a typical blend of Victorian pomp and post war optimism which gave the university a distinct Mancunian quality.
Now it seems only the pomp of the Victorian will survive, the modernism all but gone and its quirky vision, inventive and playful, with plentiful green space and flourishes of abstract art, giant friezes and glittering murals or mosaics draping walls and adding grandeur to concrete’s otherwise hard lines, thrown carelessly away. MMS aren’t alone in expressing urgent alarm at the perilous fate of the lovely mural long considered to be by Mitzi Cunliffe of Heaton Park Pumping Station fame (attributed to her in all the available literature, including Hartwell’s Pevsner and Brumhead & Wyke, but now it transpires uncertain) crucially unlisted and consequently unprotected and outside the purview of the city’s conservation officer, the university’s estate department, or even the Whitworth Gallery, partners with the 20th Century Society in ongoing attempts to save and re-house it.
So we end with a short tribute found on Aidan O’Rouke’s EOM website from 2007, and urge anyone with a moment to spare to email the university estates department, Manchester’s conservation officer or the Whitworth art gallery with a quick message in support of the at risk relief mural, whoever its creator...
Moberly Hall is a student residence on the Manchester University campus, next to Oxford Rd. Its tower is one of the highest buildings in Manchester.
It has 15 floors and was completed in 1963. The tower is 160 feet high and one of the tallest buildings in this part of Manchester. Moberly Hall was to have been demolished under the original development plans. In my opinion it is a very attractive building that is just as much a part of the character of the university as the OwensBuilding.
mms at risk rant - aug 2009
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this month we kick off with a forgotten, overgrown, lichen covered wall, a former Twentieth Century Society Building of the Month and described in some detail by our own Miss Niblock on her Diary of a Bluestocking. We asked her to recap the story here.....
Hollaway Sculptural Wall,
London Rd, UMIST Campus, 1968 - present
Anthony Hollaway’s curious concrete 'castle' wall on London Rd next to the Mancunian Way was installed in 1968, designed as a 'sound-buffer’ for the Engineering Pilot Plant building by Harry S Fairhurst in the UMIST campus, just one of a series of collaborations with the architect – they worked together on concrete panelling on the nearby chemistry building and again later on stained glass at Manchester Cathedral. 30 years on it is practically invisible, hidden away and quite neglected. Chances are you've passed it on the way from Piccadilly station to the UMIST campus or Stockport Road and barely noticed this overlooked treasure. Or perhaps you have noticed it and dismissed it as merely a graffitied eyesore.
But this is no ordinary wall, as anyone who looks at it more closely and gives it a second chance will discover. Even moss covered, lichen ridden, strewn with discarded takeaways, assorted rubbish and bird droppings, the Hollaway wall is a delight, its sturdy exuberance a testimony to the hardy optimism of a small band of utopian modernists of post-war Britain, a lovely and elegant length of concrete sculpture.
The wall is a relic and a rare beast. Hollaway was amongst a small band of pioneer artists to work with the London County Council Housing and Architects' Departments and to lead research at the Cement and Concrete Association at Wexham Springs. Other ‘consultants’ in this experimental period included Victor Pasmore and Kenneth and Diane Rowntree, and the list of names Hollaway got together with on projects in these heady days reads like a who’s who of modernism - Basil Spence, Sylvia Crowe, Eric Lyons and Ove Arup, amongst others. It was an exciting time and our little wall was a part of it all….
It is therefore arguably more architecturally significant than Piccadilly pavilion, the city’s more famous acquisition, centrepiece to the renovated Piccadilly gardens by signatect Tadao Ando, commissioned at enormous expense for the 2002 Commonwealth games. A simple curved concrete wall with a covered space on its concave side providing yet more coffee chains and a modicum of shelter, the pavilion has hardly faired much better than the Hollaway wall and is already looking a little shabby, sandwiched awkwardly between rows of plastic urinals and tram machinery. Nonetheless this concrete structure, part buffer, part artwork, is a significant coup for the city - Ando's first ever UK project.
In sharp contrast to this high profile commission, the Hollaway wall which has been sitting unobtrusively in a quiet corner of the city bothering no-one finds itself suddenly in the limelight for all the wrong reasons. In short, it seems that not satisfied with wreaking havoc on the Owens campus, the powers that be have turned their pitiless gaze towards the splendid UMIST, with plans apparently afoot to sell off much of the site which includes some of the city's finest and increasingly rare 1960s buildings and structures. The 20th century society featured the wall in its building of the month section earlier this year, and is supporting a well deserved submission for listing status. In his essay on the website (click above for full text) Richard Brook, senior lecturer at the Manchester school of architecture, waxes lyrical about the wall, its significance and context within UMIST as part of a broader 60's utopian vision, emphasising its unique status and importance -
‘Many of the structures similar to this, by artists, were retaining walls. This was designed as a sound buffer. As such, this particular wall has more ‘object’ status as it stands upon its field rather than embedded within. The work was designed to ‘enhance weathering and texture’ by the use of ‘rough sawn formwork’.
Hollaway at the time explained, “the main endeavour was the decorative exploration in new ways of materials in common use and the inventive use of new materials emerging for purposes usually other than their expected application to the building industry”.
As much of this type of work was actually contained within the material fabric of buildings, its value has never been truly appreciated and a significant amount, particularly works to foyers and other internal areas, has been lost without comment. The catalogue of works by the LCC is unknown and all archive material lost after the dissolution of the GLC.
ManchesterCity Council and the University of Manchester currently propose the site as a development area. As such, the wall is under threat of demolition and does not register as a concern in the preliminary development briefing documents.’
A wall that’s at once an artwork, a sculpture and a technical experiment is considered by many to be of national importance, an example of a brief pioneering and co-operative spirit that led to numerous important innovations. The fact that is stands alone rather than incorporated into a building means it is vulnerable as well as rare. Let’s not assume it will survive the tail end of the noughties building boom or the current recession. Visit the wall, get close up and take in its battered beauty, love and cherish it. Then show your support and demand its listing and appreciation.
And do it now, before it’s too late...
mms at risk rant - july 2009
"Photograph by Richard Brook from Holloway's' thesis on his own work held at The National Archive, Bretton Hall". Special thanks to him for this.
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