Victoria Baths : Attraction of Manchester

Victoria Baths is a Grade II* listed building, situated on the edges of the Longsight, Ardwick and Rusholme areas of Manchester, UK.

It was designed by Henry Price and opened in 1906 by the Manchester Corporation. For 86 years the Baths provided both essential and leisure facilities. Private baths and a laundry were housed there along with three swimming pools and a Turkish bath. The main swimming pool was floored over in the winter months to hold dances. In 1952 the Victoria Baths installed the first public Aeratone (jacuzzi) in the country.

In the design and construction of the Baths, a great deal of money was expended, Manchester having at that time one of the world’s wealthiest municipal coffers. The façade has multi-coloured brickwork and terracotta decoration, the main interior public spaces are clad in glazed tiles from floor to ceiling and most of the many windows have decorative stained glass.

The Baths were closed by Manchester City Council in 1993. The Friends of Victoria Baths was formed and began to investigate the possibility of running the Victoria Baths independently.
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Victoria station : Attraction of Manchester

Manchester Victoria railway station is the second of Manchester’s mainline railway stations, now being much less important than Manchester Piccadilly station. It is located to the north of the city centre on Hunts Bank, virtually adjacent to Manchester Cathedral. Originally it was a small single storey single platform building designed by George Stephenson and completed in 1844 to serve the Manchester and Leeds Railway. By this time there were six railways connecting Manchester to the cities of London, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Bury and Bolton. Victoria Station came to dominate the Long Millgate area and was one of the biggest passenger stations in Britain.

In 1842, work started to extend the Liverpool and Manchester Railway line from Victoria station to Ordsall Lane and the extension opened on 4 May 1844.

Victoria was enlarged by William Dawes, who is responsible for most of the remaining facade, in 1909.

The present Edwardian building has a 160 yard facade, which still carries an iron and glass canopy bearing the names of the original destinations which it served, and a tile map depicting the routes of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway which operated from the station until 1923. These canopies served as covered waiting porch for taxi cabs until they were severely damaged in the 15 June 1996 IRA bomb blast - they have now been completely restored to their former glory. The cast iron train sheds behind the facade run back for some 700 yards. Initially the station was approached by a wooden footbridge over the River Irk which has subsequently disappeared beneath culverting alongside the Cathedral, where it makes its way un-noticed into the River Irwell.
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Sunlight House : Attraction of Manchester

Sunlight House is a fine art deco office building on Quay Street, Manchester, England.

Built in 1932 by Joseph Sunlight, at 14-stories and 135 feet, it was reputed to be Northern England’s first skyscraper and was for many years the city’s tallest building. It is constructed of steel and concrete and clad in Portland stone. The original plans for 40 stories were blocked by the city council.

The building was rennovated in the late 1990s and now houses shops and offices. It features a swimming pool, which now forms the centre of a commercial gym. The building is widely reputed to be haunted. It is a Grade II listed building.

Manchester (HM Prison) : Attraction of Manchester

HM Prison Manchester is a British prison.

It was opened as Strangeways Prison in 1869 to replace Salford’s New Bailey Prison which had closed the previous year. The name came from the Strangeways Park and Gardens on which it was built. It was designed by Alfred Waterhouse, assisted by Joshua Jebb, on the panopticon principle.

However, in the 1990s the names of prisons were removed in the UK. Although it is now formally known as Her Majesty’s Prison, Manchester, many still refer to it as Strangeways.

It is situated in the centre of Manchester, along Southall Street, and is next door to the (now closed) Boddingtons brewery. Its central watch-tower can be seen from several miles around.

It originally held both male and female prisoners but, since 1963, it has been solely for male convicts. Over a hundred people were executed at Manchester Prison by hanging. Capital punishment was de facto abolished in the UK in 1964 and the last convict to be executed was hanged in Manchester Prison on August 13, 1964.

In April 1990, the Strangeways Riots took place. For almost four weeks, prisoners staged a rooftop protest. Over two hundred inmates and prison guards were injured and one prisoner was killed. A major rebuilding and refurbishment effort followed and the prison was re-opened in 1994.

South Manchester Synagogue : Attraction of Manchester

The South Manchester Synagogue is a former synagogue in Manchester, England, of diverse stylistic influences and innovative technical construction.

The result of a competition won by Joseph Sunlight, the synagogue was completed in 1913. It stands in Wilbraham Road, Fallowfield.

Sunlight adopted the style of a Turkish mosque, complete with dome and minaret though interpreted in a modernist, it has even been said cubist, idiom. Sunlight confessed to quoting Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and the tower of Westminster Cathedral.

The building marked a first in British synagogue construction in avoiding column supports for its 35 ft dome by the use of reinforced concrete in its span and the lattice girders supporting the cantilever gallery.

As of 2004, the building is redundant, the congregation having relocated, but there are plans to convert it to a residential Jewish student centre.

Royal Exchange : Attraction of Manchester

The Royal Exchange is an impressive nineteenth century classical building in Manchester, England.

The Exchange was originally constructed to house Manchester’s cotton traders and used as a cotton exchange until 1968. Today, the magnificent main hall of the building houses the Royal Exchange Theatre.

The building was seriously damaged by the 1996 IRA bomb, which exploded less than 50 metres away, it was closed for two years while repairs were carried out. However, the fact that nearby St Ann’s Church survived almost unscathed is almost certainly due to the sheltering effect of the large, stone-built Exchange.

It includes the Royal Exchange Theatre, Royal Exchange shopping centre and other stores on street level, including Lush, Nike, Pastiche and other brands.

It faces Boots the chemist, the Marks & Spencer / Selfridges Building.

Portico Library : Attraction of Manchester

The Portico Library is a subscription library in central Manchester, north-west England.

It was established following a meeting of Manchester business people in 1803 which resolved to found an “institute uniting the advantages of a newsroom and a library". Money was raised through members’ subscriptions and it opened in 1806.

The library, mainly focused on 19th century literature, is housed in a Grade II* neo-classical listed building, designed by Thomas Harrison (architect of The Lyceum, Liverpool which appears to have inspired the founders of the Portico), and built by one of the founders, David Bellhouse.

Today, the building also houses a gallery. The ground floor now consists of public house, whilst the library remains upstairs.

Tadao Ando : Attraction of Manchester

Tadao Ando (Ando Tadao, born September 13, 1941 in Osaka, Japan) is a Japanese architect whose approach to architecture is sometimes categorised as Critical Regionalism. Ando has led a storied life, working as truck driver and boxer before settling on the profession of architecture without having taken formal training.

He works primarily in exposed cast-in-place concrete and is renowned for an exemplary craftsmanship which invokes a Japanese sense of materiality, junction and spatial narrative through the pared aesthetics of international modernism. His buildings are often characterized by complex three-dimensional circulation paths. These paths interweave between interior and exterior spaces formed both within large-scale geometric shapes and in the spaces between them.

In 1969, he established the firm Tadao Ando Architects & Associates.

His “Row House in Sumiyoshi” (Azuma House), a small two-story, cast-in-place concrete house completed in 1976, is an early work that begins to show elements of his characteristic style. It consists of three equally sized rectangular volumes: two solid volumes of interior spaces separated by an open courtyard. By nature of the courtyard’s position between the two interior volumes, it becomes an integral part of the house’s circulation system.

In 1995, Ando won the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize medallion. He donated the $100,000 prize money to the orphans of the 1995 Kobe earthquake.

Midland Bank Building : Attraction of Manchester

The Midland Bank building on King Street, Manchester, was designed by Edwin Lutyens in 1928. Built 1933-5.

A castle-like Art Deco building, surrounded moat-like by roads on all four sides, is the work of Sir Edward Lutyens. Built with the help of engineers Whinney, Son & Austen Hall between 1933 and 1935, it features carvings by the local sculptor J Ashton Floyd. The layered style of the period is shown in the use of set back features and arches around the lower levels making this a truly classic Art Deco building.

The branch has been re-branded since Midland Bank became HSBC Bank plc after its takeover by HSBC in the 1990s. However, it is still widely known as the Midland Bank Building by local people.

Town Hall : Attraction of Manchester

Manchester Town Hall is a building in Manchester, England that houses the city’s government and administrative functions. Completed by architect Alfred Waterhouse in 1877, it is a fine example of Victorian Gothic revival, featuring imposing murals by Ford Madox Brown.

As filming is forbidden in the Palace of Westminster, Manchester Town Hall is frequently used as its “body double” in British political dramatisations.

The Town Hall was listed as a Grade I listed building on February 25, 1952.

Old Town Hall

Manchester’s original civic administration was housed in the Police Office in King Street. It was replaced by the first Town Hall, to accommodate the growing local government and its civic assembly rooms. The Town Hall, also located in King Street at the corner of Cross Street, was designed by Francis Goodwin and constructed during 1822-1825, much of it by David Bellhouse.
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Central Library : Attraction of Manchester

Manchester Central Library is an impressive circular building next to the extended Town Hall in Manchester, England.

Designed by E. Vincent Harris, it was constructed in 1934, but because of its traditional classical architecture it is often mistakenly thought to be much older.

The respected Library Theatre Company is located in the basement. The library also incorporates the famous Henry Watson music library.

John Rylands Library : Attraction of Manchester

The John Rylands Library (inaugurated October 1899) is a collection of historic books and manuscripts in Manchester, England. In 1972, it merged with the library of the Victoria University of Manchester to form the John Rylands University Library of Manchester. Notably, the John Rylands Library holds the oldest extant New Testament document, Rylands Library Papyrus P52, the so-called St John’s fragment.

History

The library was founded by Mrs Enriqueta Augustina Rylands in memory of her late husband, John Rylands. In 1890, having purchased a site on Deansgate at the heart of Manchester city centre, she commissioned a design from architect Sir Basil Champneys. Mrs Rylands had originally intended the library as a principally theological collection and the building, a very fine example of Victorian Gothic, has much of the appearance of a church. The core of the library was formed around the collection of 40,000 rare books assembled by George John Spencer, which Mrs Rylands purchased in 1892. The library was finally opened to readers on January 1, 1900.

The library became a Grade I listed building on January 25, 1952.

Beetham Tower : Attraction of Manchester

Beetham Tower, Manchester is a skyscraper due for completion in 2006 in the English city of Manchester. It is named after the developers, Beetham Organization, and is designed by Ian Simpson.

It can also be referred to by its address, 301 Deansgate.

It is located along Deansgate, it will have 48 floors and will be 171 metres (561 feet) in height, which will make it the tallest building in the UK outside of London and the UK’s 6th tallest building. It will contain a Hilton Hotel for the first 23-floors, a restaurant on the 24th and apartments up to the 48th floor.

Imperial War Museum North : Attraction of Manchester

The Imperial War Museum North is a war museum in Trafford, Greater Manchester, England. It was designed by world-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind and constructed at a cost of £28 million by Sir Robert McAlpine with engineering by Arup. The building has a highly complex geometry with sloping floors and ceilings and few perpendicular surfaces, designed to induce disorientation reminiscent of that caused by war. The large tower is known as the ‘Air Shard’ and has a viewing/observation platform at the top, accessed by a lift, with a good view of The Lowry and Salford Quays.

The museum features an exhibit called The Big Picture; once an hour, the lights in the main exhibition hall are lowered, photographs and quotations from scenes of war are projected onto all of the walls, and recordings of events echo around the hall. This exhibit completes the unnerving feeling the museum is designed to create.

Admission is free and the museum is open between 10.00am and 6.00pm daily.

The Imperial War Museum North won the 2003 British Construction Industry Building Award.

The G-Mex Center : Attraction of Manchester

The G-MEX centre or Greater Manchester EXhibition centre is an exhibition and conference centre in Manchester in England.

The building was granted Grade I listed building status on December 18, 1963, but has since been downgraded to Grade II* status.

Well known for hosting exhibitions and conferences, the G-MEX Centre used to host high profile rock concerts, most notably Manchester’s own supergroup Oasis in a highly memorable 1997 performance. It was also the venue for gymnastics, weightlifting, judo and wrestling during the 2002 Commonwealth Games. In September 2006 it will be used by the Labour Party for their Annual Conference, moving away from the traditional seaside venue of Blackpool, Bournemouth or Brighton.

In 2001 the Manchester International Convention Centre (MICC) was added to the complex, with an 804 seat auditorium plus breakout rooms and Great Northern Hall. This venue has hosted such prestigious clients as the CBI, Ecofin, Labour Party, Lib Dem Party and, in April 2006, the Conservative Party.