Architectural Flamboyance #3

Samuel Alexander Building External Stairs, University of Manchester Campus

Look Up Manchester Posters

Architectural Flamboyance #2

Wing Yip - Chinese and Oriental Groceries, Oldham Road

Architectural Flamboyance #1

The Roof to the Catholic Chaplaincy Building of The University Of Manchester, Oxford Road.

Architectural Flamboyance will be a weekly update looking at elements of Manchester’s buildings where the architect has been allowed to indulge in a little bit of self expression. It won’t include major architects, it won’t necessarily be about modern buildings, but it will show that the everyday architect can still, and has always been able to, create fresh designs even though the client’s small quantity of money tries to prevents them. No article will accompany the image of the element, it will speak for itself, any knowledge about it will be conveyed, however the buildings on show may have no data regarding them. But perhaps the acknowledgement in these updates will conjure up new data, or just give them the appreciation they require.

Initial Concepts for New MMU Building Revealed

Manchester Metropolitan University's Faculty of Art & Design was recently granted a £30M budget for "an extensive reorganisation of it's estate." Work has already begun on the project with the Chatham Tower currently being refurbished and expected to be completed by September 2010. One of the most significant changes planned is the demolition of the Chatham Undercroft building with a new building planned to open in 2012. Stirling Prize winning architects Feilden Clegg Bradley were recently appointed as architects for the new building and after the initial consultation phase the first images of the new building have been released.

The first images reveal plans to create a new entrance to the tower as well as links to the upper floors by a circulation and atria space. A roof garden can also be seen in one of the visuals and model.

More information on the project can be found at the MMU website here.

Whitworth Art Gallery Shortlist Unveiled

The shortlist for a competition to design an internal overhaul and extension to the beautiful Grade-II listed Whitworth Art Gallery on Oxford Road, Manchester, has been revealed and the biggest surprise is that Zaha Hadid and Feilden Clegg Bradley have missed out. 139 practices had originally expressed an interest in working on the project, from which a longlist of 10 practices were selected for interviews by a jury panel. The full longlist was as follows: Amanda Levete Architects, Dixon Jones, Edward Cullinan Architects, Eric Parry Architects, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, Haworth Tompkins, MUMA, Stanton Williams, Stephenson Bell with Carmody Groake, Zaha Hadid Architects.

Originally the longlist drew attention for being headed up two 'starchitects' both of which are female (Zaha Hadid and Amanda Levete) as well as featuring last year's Stirling Prize winners (Feilden Clegg Bradley) and current nominees for the UK's top Architecture prize (Eric Parry). Local practice Stephenson Bell, whose work has included a reworking of Piccadilly Plaza and the Aeroworks building, had teamed up with Carmody Groake (architects of the 7/7 Memorial in London) and it is unfortunate that they didn't make the shortlist as the 2007 YAYA winners have showed in the few completed projects in their portfolio that they have an ability to craft original and thought provoking buildings. The fact that Feilden Clegg Bradley also didn't make the shortlist is a surprise as they seem to be the darlings of the Universities at the moment, with their new Business School for Manchester Metropolitan University and the new building planned for the Manchester School of Art, not to mentioned muted plans for the soon-to-be-former BBC site on Oxford Road.

The shortlist in the end is comprised of Amanda Levete Architects, Edward Cullinan Architects, Haworth Tompkins, MUMA and Stanton Williams. Amanda Levete perhaps the best known left on the list, famed for her work with the late Jan Kaplicky at Future Systems and brings with her a reputation for pushing the use of new materials in construction and creating iconic forms.

Image above: Amada Levete Architects, Corian Super Surfaces

Each of the shortlisted practices now have until mid-September to work on concept designs for the Gallery before they go on public display in October and a winner is announced in November. Look Up will be following closely as the competition progresses and will bring details of the public display when they are announced.

Zaha Hadid's J S Bach Chamber Music Hall

As part of the Manchester International Festival Zaha Hadid was commissioned to design a music hall with the intention of performing various pieces of the fantastic composer Johann Sebastian Bach’s work. Alex Poots, the director of the festival, invited Hadid to design a space that’s design would evolve from Bach’s music, however Hadid has somewhat deviated from the provided brief and created a concert hall that’s design is not directly affiliated with the composer’s music.

The concert hall transforms an empty box exhibition space into an elaborate kinetic form that natural floats around the room. The form, single line, wraps itself around the audience space, contracting and expanding through the journey it takes through the room. The stage marks the midpoint of the line, here the simple form appears the most sporadic, encapsulating an o perfectly verlap between the single line and itself. Perhaps expressing the complexity of a single line of music. The hall performs beautifully as a stationary structure but also works hand in hand with the music of Bach. The structure is encased in a sharp white fabric, similar to her Burnham Pavilion in Chicago, has a fairly dense aesthetic that disguises the internal elements and adds to the illusion of floating. Hadid’s design isn’t a direct representation of Bach’s music, instead it is a parallel extrusion of the music.

Hadid’s concept of disassociating the design from Bach is similar to Peter Eiseman’s Holocaust memorial in Berlin, the architect insisted his design bare no symbolic message, instead the form would simply evoke an individual response from every visitor. A similar experience you receive upon entering the hall, and to be frank it works. One immediately feels drawn to the space only to discover the music of Bach cascading around the form, proving the the two separate entities work together as one.

Although a temporary installation, this music hall may bare significance in the future of architecture in not just Manchester but the whole of the UK. Hadid has built all over the world, except it wasn’t until 2006 when her first building was built within Britain, bearing in mind she started her London based practice in 1980. So why has it taken so long for Hadid to be recognized within her home country, and why is it that there is now a sudden surge of her work appearing across the UK? Perhaps at last we, as a country, are slowly shedding the traditional architectural skin, and now have begun to embrace a modern age of architecture.

Hadid currently has 2 builds under construction in the UK, first the Museum of Transport in Glasgow, and secondly the most significant, the Aquatics Centre for the London 2012 Olympics. However recent news appeared that she was on a list of Architects asked to submit designs for an extension to Manchester’s own Whitworth Art Gallery, if it is her design chosen Manchester may evolve into an epicenter for deconstructivist architecture, with the likes of Libeskind in Salford. Who knows which architect is next, but which ever way you look at it Hadid’s appearance at this years Manchester International Festival may be the start of something spectacular in Manchester.

By Jack Penford Baker

Success at the Corus Student Design Awards

Manchester School of Architecture student Romulus Sim has picked up the Architecture Award at the Crous Student Design Awards. The brief for this year's competiton, the 21st competiton in the series open to both architecture and engineering students, called for a design for a vertical community called 'Community One.' The proposed scheme would have to a range of programmes from places to live, work and use lesiure facilities - reducing transportation and associated pollution. The RIBA Student Architecture News digest quotes David Bonnett of David Bonnett Associates as saying Romulus's proposal was "terrific and very elegant, and was an idea that had not been seen before."

Image above from left to right: Kirby Adams CEO Corus, Siobhan Barry (MSA Tutor), Romulus Sim, Harriet Harris (MSA Tutor)

Subversion

As part of the Manchester International Festival 2009 the artist Gustav Metzger has been commissioned to design a piece of “poignant new public art.” Standing in the Peace Garden (near the Town Hall and St Peter’s Square) you will find Flailing Trees, a collection of 21 willow trees that have been planted roots up into a plinth of concrete. The purpose of the piece is to “bring nature and the environment into sharp focus” and is a direct response to the issues Look Up is also exploring – why people have disengaged with their surroundings.

Metzger’s sculpture takes something very familiar in the public realm and subverts it to portray a message. It does not appear to stop people in their tracks, many people seem to walk on by or pass it a cursory glance at most. The roots, drying and exposed, still retain that element of familiarity with the branches they have replaced; each upended tree bares a distorted resemblance to some tropical plant, not an unfamiliar object to find in the modern public space. What the sculpture does do is raise the question as to just how far removed have individuals become from their environments that an object, so totally alien, can draw no response?

The Horizontal Vs The Vertical City

Manchester’s skyline is slowly evolving into a striking amalgamation of new architecture, but which axis is the right direction?

Ian Simpson’s Beatham Tower is an iconic symbol of the architectural development here in Manchester, but should our city thrust itself into a high-rise city centre, or should it expand the plan to create grounded structures that are still part of the earth around us.

The book City Levels, by Nick Barley, explores the hierarchy of a city, and explores the social relationship between a city’s level and it’s public. Most significantly of all is how the book associates height with the social connection, the taller a building is the more detached and baron it becomes to humans, where as a low storey building is more part of it’s environment, and has a significant attachment to the building’s users and the community around it. Socially then Manchester should push for a city that is orientated towards it’s public. Manchester has a vast culture that’s spread thousands of miles across the world, so why build further away from what makes our city a miniature world. The horizontal buildings are embedded within Manchester’s culture and a city with society at it’s heart can only prosper and evolve.

In the case of American cities, the architectural skyline is a direct reference to the countries power, the taller the more power. But us British are somewhat more modest about our power, since the decline of the empire, post Queen Victoria. Instead we divulge in other mediums, rather than the building of phallic like objects that protrude the sky. But shouldn’t we move away from this low rise strut we seem to be stuck in, developments in structural engineering are making it possible to be build eclectic forms that pierce the air above us. Except our long-standing connection to tradition still holds us back. Take Prince Charles for example, his presence in British Architecture is stalling our development in comparison to similar countries. His views, that by law means no more than a single member of the general public, has managed to destroy a billion pound project by none other than Lord Richard Rogers for a new development of the Chelsea Barracks. Whilst he ploughs on with creating a new village, Poundbury, in the heart of Dorset that already seems to be 150 years out of date. However his influence on British design is largely publicised, and perhaps a large majority of the British public shares the Prince’s views, and thus architecture will keep to tradition and remain shallow in the expanse of the sky above.

But how long can tradition last, with so many countries racing for the title of the tallest building, is it then inevitable that Manchester will join the race and build higher and higher? Take London as an example; here architecture is growing taller everyday, with no end in sight. But it is also expanding horizontally, and seems to have discovered the perfect line between the vertical and horizontal city. But London’s persona as a city is somewhat different to that of a typical British city. It has to reiterate it’s power as a capital and as one of the largest cities in the world, making height a necessity rather than a luxury. Manchester on the other hand has no need for establishing it’s strength, instead it should focus on building practical structures that serve a physical purpose, rather than a metaphorical message.

The majority of new builds in Manchester are built to a height that stretches as high as possible, without letting go from the land below. Take for example William Alsop’s Chips, in New Islington, this 10 storey building feels tall within it’s context, but it doesn’t remove itself from it’s environment. It still feels part of the ground below, and part of the social fabric that is slowly being weaved in the rebranded area of Ancoats. However about a mile away lays the relatively low Victorian buildings of Deansgate, juxtaposed against Ian Simpson’s Betham Tower. Statistically the “Hilton” isn’t incredibly tall, but it’s position in contrast it’s low rise context creates a tree in a field of flowers. This individuality, to me, detracts from the city of Manchester and the sheer height separates it from the built environment surrounding it. Architecture and society are the elements of all cities, and so Manchester should embrace architecture that is designed for societies benefit, not the financial.

Maybe Manchester will one day have extravagant buildings jettisoning from it’s horizon and the only place to live is in the sky above, but as it currently stands it has no need to promote it’s power nor does it need to stick to tradition, instead it has to carve it’s own path, it’s own horizontal path. Creating a city that is built around society rather than power.

by Jack Penford Baker