I am considering the city of Manchester as a source of inspiration for my work, I feel at home in the city centre, and know it well. My first impression of the city was the sheer scale and splendour of the Victorian architecture. My degree is in modern history, and the architecture of Manchester reflects this period of history. There are layers and traces of history throughout the streets and buildings. The mills and warehouses of industrial revolution, the first canal and the first passenger railway. The Free Trade Hall and the Peterloo massacre and Nelson Street the home of the suffragette movement.
I have found a great book called The Stones of Manchester by Clive Stewart that tells the story of the principal buildings of Manchester that I love, and the architects who designed them The book covers buildings from the reign of Queen Victoria (1837 - 1901), and charts the architectural styles used in public, commercial and religious buildings in the city, over time. Whilst the author is primarily focused on architecture, using the dates I can link this to the wider political and social history of the period. I also have a family connection, as the city Stewart describes is the Victorian city that my grandparents saw, when they first arrived in England.
The author urges an appreciation and affection for Victorian architectural styles. He says that not all Victorian architecture was bad, some was very good indeed, and Victorian Manchester was better than most. In the early nineteenth century he found little in Manchester of interest, the city centre was crowded with factories, mills, and densely populated cheap housing, much in poor condition. A few wealthier streets existed in the city centre and Ardwick, but other than Platt Hall and Heaton Hall there was little residential building of note. However public buildings showed some improvement, the Portico Library by Thomas Harrison, The Friends Meeting House by Richard Lane, The old Town Hall in King Street by Francis Goodwin, and the Art Gallery and Athenaeum both by Charles Barry. Most of these were in the Classical Revival style, except for the Athenaeum, see below.
All of these buildings, with the exception of the old town hall, were on my route to school, I feel proud of my city, and happy to know that these older buildings, that I am so familiar with, have architectural merit.
However, Stewart believed there was a great improvement in Manchester's architecture from 1840 to 1860, when it could be said that Manchester led the world, not just in commerce and industry, but in architecture too. Bradshaws guide said of Manchester 'here are structures fit for kings, and which many a monarch might not envy. There are some eight or ten sovereign princes in Germany whose entire revenue would not pay the cost of one of these warehouses.....They are indeed the most splendid adornment of this city, and really monumental whether we regard their splendour, their properties, or their durability.' The first architect to use the palazzo style was Edward Walters, he designed the warehouses below, and the Free Trade Hall on the right.
Building in the city at the same time, was John Edgar Gregan, who also favoured the renaissance palazzo style, as can be seen in Benjamin Heywood's Bank and the Manchester Mechanics Institution on Princess St below. However as time progressed architects were gradually veering away from Northern Italian design, and incorporating increasingly diverse elements, as can be seem in Watts Warehouse by Travis and Mangall, pictured right below.
These palazzo style buildings line Manchester's main streets, Portland Street, Mosley Street, Whitworth Street and Cross Street. These streets were the ones along which I travelled to school and university, by bus and on foot. This is what the city looks and feels like to me, grand palazzo style buildings.
The other dominant architectural style at the time was Gothic- Revival: this was more commonly seen in church buildings. Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin was the main advocate for this style and he built St Wilfrids , Hulme and his followers designed several churches in the Manchester area, with varying degrees of adherence to his principles. One such church was Holy Trinity, Platt Lane by Edmund Sharpe. Holy Trinity was built of terracotta, all interior and exterior surfaces ere made of clay. I visited this church on Monday, and spoke to one of the Ministers and took photos. It is one of three terracotta churches built by Sharpe, and the potters have gone to much trouble to mark the 'bricks' with stonecutters lines.
Both the palazzo and the gothic styles were increasingly adapted and modified by architects, who were frustrated with tradition and sought to bring architecture into the modern age. This was partly due to the availability of new materials such as cast iron, which enabled buildings to be built with much larger rooms and fewer visible supports. Engineers also became involved in building projects, and like many of their wealthy clients, and much of Victorian society, they were interested in innovation and had less respect for tradition. Ruskin's book 'The Stones of Venice' was welcomed as a possible way forward and was adopted rapidly. The Venetian-Gothic provided a means to unite both popular recent styles, and was adaptable to a wide range of building projects, including both secular and ecclesiastic.
Alfred Waterhouse used these principles to win a competition to build the Manchester Assize Courts, and received praise from Ruskin himself for his plans. The building was completed in 1859, but was hit during the blitz in 1940, and had to be demolished.
In 1868 Waterhouse completed Manchester town hall, his plans were not quite as aligned with Ruskin's principles by this time. However he had taken great care to ensure that he had accommodated all the functional; and practical needs of the buildings occupants. Waterhouse is considered one of the finest architects of the Victorian age.
Thomas Worthington was born in Salford and was a highly regarded architect responsible for a great many buildings in Greater Manchester constructed in both Renaissance and Northern Italian Gothic style. His work was very highly regarded both at the time and today. The three images below are the Albert Memorial and Memorial Hall both in Albert Square, and the Police Courts on Minshull Street. The first two of these buildings are in Albert Square where I waited for my school bus each day.
Several other famous Victorian architects designed buildings for Manchester, including a trio of churches. William Butterfield built St Cross Church in Ashton New Road, George Edmund Street built St Peter Swinton and George Fredrick Bodley built St Augustine Swinton. This later Victorian period was to end with two final churches, of great architectural merit. Joseph Aloysius Hansom was responsible for The Holy Name on Oxford Road which was finished in 1871. The church was built in the thirteenth-century French Gothic style, the interior is decorated in terra-cotta, in particular the hexagonal tiles used on the vaults by Gibbs and Canning.The Holy Name was my grandparents church, and my mum and all her brothers and sisters were christened there.
The second church was St Francis in Gorton (now known as Gorton Monastery) built by Edward Welby Pugin in 1867.
The last public building of the Gothic Revival was the John Rylands Library completed in 1899 by Basil Champneys.
Just fifty years later, as the century came to a close, Manchester ceased to lead the UK in architecture. Many commercial buildings continued to be built, but the compromises to the Gothic style and the increasingly over the top embellishments of the Victorian builders began to draw criticism in professional circles. Many leading architects had moved to London, or died, and those that replaced them had neither the funds nor the vision to lead the way in architecture. Stewart reserves the most severe criticism, for excess and poor taste, for the Refuge Assurance building on Oxford Road, and The Midland Hotel on Peter Street. Both have since been given listed building status.
I have really enjoyed Stewarts book, and feel even prouder of my city, and the great architects who designed its buildings. I think that architecture might be a way for me to connect some of the things I am interested in. The city of Manchester that is my home, my love of history, and my own personal and family history. Perhaps I can start with architecture to help me find a form that reflects a sense of place, then I can try to incorporate a sense of history and time passing.
I have some photos of some of these same Manchester buildings that I took before I had thought of university. The pictures are not however like the ones above. I was just wandering around the city, and I didn't really have a project in mind. I was just walking from Peter's Square to meet my sister for lunch on the other side of town, and I had a couple of hours to spare. It was a walk I had taken hundreds of times, but I changed my route slightly, and walked down the side of the old Theatre Royal building. On the side of the building I saw traces of elaborate windows and doors that have been bricked up, traces of past uses and the building's history. The theatre had been converted to a cinema and then a nightclub and now stood empty. Changes at the front of the building were less obvious, but it was clear from the architecture that the building was from a very different time. It struck me that my grandmother may have gone to the theatre there, my mum may have gone to the cinema, and I remember going to the nightclub. I carried on walking and looking at the city centre buildings, and taking photos of the evidence of changes of use and passage of time. There is something about architecture that interests me, and that links to my own family history as well as the wider history of the city.
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