Product Description

Manchester is the first in a brand new series of affordable, pocket-sized guides to England's cities and the first to include integrated colour illustrations. Clare Hartwell's detailed guide examines the full range and variety of Manchester's buildings old and new: from the exceptional medieval buildings of the Cathedral and Cheetham's School to the architecture of the city's Victorian heyday; from the on-going battle to preserve the heritage of the world's first industrial city to the transformation of the city centre since the terrorist bomb of 1996. Clare Hartwell also assesses the city's recent building boom, both its successes (including Stephenson Bell's new International Convention Centre, Hodder Associate's Carrer Services unit and MBLC's Aytoun Library) and its failures. Fresh attention is given to neglected areas including Hulme, once notorious as home to one of the most dysfunctional housing estates in Europe but now undergoing one of the country's most ambitious experiments in community architecture. Major projects of national importance are also covered in detail, including Michael Wilford's Lowry arts centre in Salford and Trafford's Imperial War Museum in the North, Daniel Libeskind's first building in England, which promises to be as exciting and innovative as his celebrated projects elsewhere in Europe. Consideration is also given to the often-overlooked architecture of the 1960s, from the intimacy of the Oxford Road Station to the cool American lines of the ICS tower and the underrated Brutalism of the UMIST.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #167138 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 374 pages

Review
"The new book... is a masterpiece of organisation, and a great full colour package at an affordable price." City Life

Nicholas Henshall, History Today, May 2002
'[Hartwell's] deep knowledge and robust judgments are endlessly stimulating...she has sent this Mancunian back to his native city with a new pair of eyes'

Country Life Magazine, May 2005
'a worthy addition to the black-coated tribe.'

Customer Reviews

An insightful companion for walking Manchester's pavements
Based on Pevsner's account of Manchester in the 1960s, this guide adds a huge amount of new information about the modernisation of the city and sets the recent developments in their historic background. It is very much a street guide, that you will want to take in hand as you wander. After a brief, clear historical account of the development of Manchester, the bulk of the book is made up of area-by-area guides, each of which has a suggested route to walk and a map. The text covers the noteworthy buildings on each street, so you will be looking at buildings from many eras in a single walk. Backing up the walks are short chapters on eight important buildings: the Cathedral, Chetham's School, The Town Hall, the Town Hall Extension, Central Library, the City Art Gallery, The John Rylands Library, and the facade of the Free Trade Hall. There is a detailed coverage of the mixed bag of Academic buildings in the southern University area, and some coverage of places outside Manchester, such as Salford Quays, where the Lowry Centre and the new Imperial War Museum North are sited. Modern buildings are covered almost up to date, including several that were under construction when the book was in production, such as Urbis, the Piccadilly Gardens renovation, and the City Art Gallery. Separate indexes of buildings and of architects, and a short architectural glossary are helpful. The physical format of the book is a little disappointing. Although the many colour photographs are excellent, they are necessarily small, and are best when they capture details rather than whole buildings. The binding is determined to keep the book closed, so my copy is soon going to be damaged as I use both hands to wrench it open while walking the city pavements, and by the time all the walks are done, I expect it to be a wreck. This could have been much better made, even if it would have put the price up by a pound or two, because this is a book I would like to both use and keep. If you live or work here, or are visiting, I recommend buying this Guide.

Indispensible for Manchester Explorers
Based on Pevsner's account of Manchester in the 1960s, this guide adds a huge amount of new information about the modernisation of the city and sets the recent developments in their historic background. It is very much a street guide that you will want to take in hand as you wander. After a brief, clear historical account of the development of Manchester, the bulk of the book is made up of area-by-area guides, each of which has a suggested route to walk and a map. The text covers the noteworthy buildings on each street, so you will be looking at buildings from many eras in a single walk. Backing up the walks are short chapters on eight important buildings: the Cathedral, Chetham's School, The Town Hall, the Town Hall Extension, Central Library, the City Art Gallery, The John Rylands Library, and the facade of the Free Trade Hall. There is a detailed coverage of the mixed bag of academic buildings in the southern University area, and some coverage of places outside Manchester, such as Salford Quays, where the Lowry Centre and the new Imperial War Museum North are sited. Modern buildings are covered almost up to date, including several that were under construction when the book was in production, such as Urbis, the Piccadilly Gardens renovation, and the City Art Gallery. Separate indexes of buildings and of architects, and a short architectural glossary are helpful. The physical format of the book is a little disappointing. Although the many colour photographs are excellent, they are necessarily small, and are best when they capture details rather than whole buildings. The binding is determined to keep the book closed, so my copy is soon going to be damaged as I use both hands to wrench it open while walking the city pavements, and by the time all the walks are done, I expect it to be a wreck. This could have been much better made, even if it would have put the price up by a pound or two, because this is a book I would like to both use and keep. If you live or work here, or are visiting, I recommend buying this Guide.