Mancograph
Return of the Mancograph - Version 2 now available…
I suspect that many of Skyliner’s readers will also be familiar with the architectural sage that is Eddy Rhead. Eddy is on my dream line-up in my imaginary quiz team, admittedly the quiz that we’re playing is Strike It Lucky but my imagination is too full up with concrete and Portland stone to make room for anything more taxing.
Eddy’s latest venture is the beautiful Mancograph, we previously gave away a print of Mancograph V1 and now the second version is available to buy - but it’s of very limited stock so grab one quickly.
Read the article I wrote for Now Then issue 2 about the Kardomah Cafes of Manchester. The full (and quite beautiful) version of the magazine can be read by clicking the image above, or read the article below.
Cafe Cultured
Upon arriving in Manchester during the 1950s to work for The Guardian, novelist Michael Frayn asked where in the city one could expect to find the artists’ quarter - he was answered with a peel of laughter. But proof that there was indeed a haven for artists’ back then can be found at the Venetian Gothic Memorial Hall on Albert Square. The layers of paint that had obscured it for years have now all but vanished and in the doorway of this listed building you can clearly see a sign for one of the Manchester branches of the Kardomah Café.
The Kardomah Cafés originated in Edwardian times and garnered a reputation amongst the bohemian as the place to be seen. In fact, it was so popular a place that the Welsh branch of Kardomah became the meeting point for Dylan Thomas and the eponymous ’Kardomah Gang’; a gathering of painters, writers, artists and musicians who met regularly in the Swansea café.
Opening from around 1929 onwards, our own little Lost Generation could be found here for it was in one of the Manchester Kardomah’s that William Turner and L S Lowry would meet to famously not talk about Lowry’s work. It’s was at the Piccadilly Gardens branch of the chain (later a Lyon’s) that Lowry, in 1957, opened a letter from a 13 year old girl asking him for artistic advice. Lowry looked up from the page only to see a bus heading to the same town as noted in the letter, he boarded the bus and paid her a visit. The unlikely pair struck up an avuncular relationship and the girl, herself named Lowry, became the eventual heir to his estate.
There were at least three of these cafes in Manchester with one at St Anne’s Square that had a large Arabic following, Albert Square, and a final one at Piccadilly Gardens that was architecturally ornate and Moorish in style.
The cafés welcomed those who perhaps did not feel welcome elsewhere, be that down to sex, religion or ethnicity. Over the years the cafes kept up with the times and by the 1960s, just prior to their demise, they were the haunts of many young Mods.
During the peak of their popularity the cafés were always busy but we’re treated with more of a grandeur than we grant coffee shops today; they were a night out for many customers and so they would dress in best hats and gloves and sit around waiting to be seen as they ate herring roe on toast and listened to live jazz.
The plush interiors of the London and Manchester branches were the work of Sir Misha Black, who is perhaps more well known for designing the City of Westminster street signs, the 1978 London Transport moquette (those iconic geometric orange and black seat covers) and co-founding the Design Research Unit (a consultancy specialising in architecture, industrial design and graphics).
The Kardomah chain was founded in Liverpool and predominantly based in the UK but a handful made their way to Paris, Sydney and even a fictional Kardomah can be seen in Brief Encounter as the location of the lovers’ tryst.
After the Kardomahs were closed and Manchester began to welcome and celebrate urban street culture, these dark cafes of yesterday were forgotten as Manchester pointed an ashamed finger at itself as a city that was living behind closed doors. The city council focussed upon investing in public spaces and encouraging urban culture and street life in line with the councils arts and culture strategy. Couple this with the eventual smoking ban and Manchester became a city living very much outdoors, but Kardomah’s ghost is still here and it’s pointing out the glaringly obvious oversights in our ‘cafe culture’, in our reluctance to utilise the three most obvious urban spaces for cafe life in the city (besides that wonderful street level car park on Aytoun Street) - and of course, they are the three sites of Kardomah itself; Albert Square, St Ann’s Square, and Piccadilly Gardens.
Before cafe culture Kardomah already had the locations nailed.
These were beat clubs before beat. Coffee shops before Starbucks. Cafe culture before Canal Street.
The Streetview exhibition dates are set, and launch night is going to be the first big party of 2013. Come and join us.
A new exhibition for city lovers, map makers, and fans of the architecture of Greater Manchester. A series of prints and models based on Google’s Streetview, with over 30 works including pieces by Stanley Chow, Mark O’Brien, and Clare Allan.
The back room will feature a spin off exhibition bringing together the works of Secret Cities photographer Andrew Brooks and illustrator Michael Morrell. Both artists have documented the BBC Oxford Road demolition, Brooks through his unique style of photography and Morrell through a series of illustrations that will come together to form a comic/social history newspaper.
Then join us into the night as the party gets started with DOTS AND LOOPS!
Cromford Court
The Arndale Centre’s lofty lookout
Recent news that Zhuzhou, China had built villas on the roof of a shopping mall sparked excitement across the world with the concept being labelled as the future of urban planning, however, this future had already been realised, in 1981, on top of Manchester’s Arndale Centre.
The Arndale Centre from above, circa 1980
Cromford Court, known to tenants as ‘the podium’, was a housing association venture by Manchester City Council. In all there were 60 flats on the rooftops of the Arndale Centre
Chapel Street, Salford
Photos by Jennifer Brookes.
To celebrate Lowry’s 125th birthday; an article about the Chapel Street area of Salford originally published in May 2012 as the introduction piece for Skyliner From the Other City, an alternative venue guide for annual music festival Sounds From the Other City.
Despite the obvious dereliction, beneath the surface Chapel Street is bustling. What it lacks in most everything you’d except from a city’s main throughfare, it makes up for with the vibrancy of its residents and visitors. On the face of things the street is barren but for the bricked up pubs and a constant stream of traffic; always passing through, and never stopping.
During the late 50s, to make way for redevelopment of the area, the facades of the independent businesses that stood here were saved and preserved as a sort of toy town. Named Lark Hill Place this ghost street
The first issue of the lovely Twenty Two magazine, for which I am a contributor.
My feature all about art out on the streets of Manchester can be found on page fifteen.
A Wondrous Place
Last week I was asked to curate the Northern Spirit theatre company’s new project A Wondrous Place. The project is a collaborative piece from some of the best writers in the north of England and I am over the moon to have been chosen to be part of that. In the build up to a new show by Northern Spirit a collective of writers, whose own blogs and projects are fundamentally based upon a love for where they live, have come together to celebrate the north.
My week followed in the footsteps of many wonderful writers, some of whom I already followed with interest, including Natalie Bradbury of The Shrieking Violet and Dan Feeney of In a Town So Small.
The theme for my week was Cottonopolis: A Skyline Reimagined, a journey through the skyline of Manchester with architect Joseph Sunlight as head of the city’s planning department. I cover proposals that the city denied and buildings we demolished, but with Sunlight at the helm approving these visions and denying demolitions. It’s a fictional account of actual plans and buildings and it’s Manchester as Cottonopolis - a Chicago-inspired, noir novel of a city.
Manchester’s Public Art
From Lemn Sissay’s series of poems adorning the walls and pavements through to the classical Ford Madox Brown murals at the Town Hall, but what other artworks lie in wait of discovery throughout the city? What about off the streets and into the everyday; the negative spaces where you spend so much time? There is almost always art in these functional buildings, only it’s not usually very good. Offices and art seem to exist in parallel universes to each other, with the best attempts often as depressing as a faded, mass-produced watercolour in a crass gold frame, strip lit for added nausea.
In The Midland Hotel, in the Wyvern Room, the walls are lined with Eadweard Muybridge photographs. Muybridge was fascinated with the locomotion of animals and was a pioneer in his field, capturing what the human eye could not perceive as separate motions. British born, but working mainly in California, Muybridge killed his wife’s lover and Phillip Glass produced an opera based on the story.
The Castle Hotel was once home to a mural of the former landlady; Kath Smethurst. The mural was created by Mark Kennedy, a prolific mosaic artist in Manchester but aside from the artistic merit of the piece it was the material used that really set this apart – the grouting was made from Kath’s ashes. Kennedy has used the same method for his mosaic of Bernard Manning on the wall of Manning’s Embassy Club in Harpuhey.
(You can hear me talk to Documentally about The Castle’s macabre mosaic, and other Manchester curiosities, for Northern Quarter Stories here)
The Albert Hall & Aston Institute
Inside the Albert Hall, Manchester
Photos by Andrew Brooks
The Albert Hall and Aston Institute, built in 1910 by W J Morley, was home to the Manchester and Salford Wesleyan Mission, though today it stands empty awaiting renovation.
The ground floor was occupied as Brannigan’s bar for several years and many people have passed through these doors but did they realise just how ornate the building is, did they know about the organ one floor above that’s big enough for a dozen people to climb inside?
The building is vast, spread over four huge floors with the basement
The Ghosts of Stretford Mall
Photos by Shirley Bainbridge
Stretford Arndale was renamed Stretford Mall in 2003 and modernised throughout, only it looks as though they missed a spot…
Set within Stretford Mall is the market square, still gloriously sixties in appearance though sadly dying in trade. But there’s more than just these units who are struggling on despite everything; there’s a mezzanine level that houses something of a time warp.
It was whilst stood admiring the textured frieze surrounding the market, a leftover of the 1969 decor that once covered the entire centre, that the mezzanine level above became apparent. It was like staring through a tear in the fabric of time; it wasn’t altered, it wasn’t hidden yet it wasn’t paid attention to either. Totally isolated and hidden in plain sight.
Looking at an archive image of that old interior still present here in the square there’s that tinge of glamour, the same tinge evident when looking back at Manchester airport when the departure lounge was framed by enormous Italian chandeliers (these chandeliers are now in various homes: one at
St Philip’s Crypt, Salford
(photo by Jennifer Brookes. All other photos by Andrew Brooks)
St Philips Church is perhaps the architectural highlight of the city of Salford, its beautiful bell tower beckoning you in off the road to take a closer look. The building is unassuming yet classical and unlike any other church in the region.
The church was designed by Sir Robert Smirke in 1825 in a Greek revival style unique to the area, and taken from a design Smirke had done previously for St Mary’s Church in London.
Inside the church you’ll find a Renn and Boston organ, a rare example of British 19th century organ making with most having been destroyed or altered. Made in 1829, the organ has been restored twice, and now includes pipes taken from a dismantled organ from New Jerusalem Church on Peter Street, Manchester. It is regarded as the finest surviving example of Renn’s work.
There’s also something waiting to surprise you beneath the church, for down below is a crypt.
The crypt houses around 8 bodies though could hold many more. Three aisles run beneath
Look ‘Tup’ - Musical Mancunian Way
Somewhere along the Mancunian Way there’s a small piece of graffiti that reads ‘tup’ and nestled in the loop of the ‘p’ is a tiny hole. Take your headphones with you and you’ll be able to plug yourself into the wall and listen to a specially commissioned song.
Good art is effectively hidden within architecture all over the city, be it an accomplished mural in an office block or a priceless painting hanging in the backroom of a library, and this song by Manchester artist LoneLady (Julie Campbell) brings this catalogue of art lurking in wait of discovery beyond the visual.
The track is on loop for the life of the battery and is hermetically sealed within the Mancunian Way. Chances are as you read this it may well have lived out the life of the battery, having been installed since 18th June 2012 at the start of the RIBA Love Architecture festival.
Titled ‘Good Morning, Midnight’ and in association with The Manchester Modernist Society the music embedded into the base of the road serves as a sort of urban lullaby. The society themselves aim to inspire people about their built environment and this isn’t their first foray into audio installations having previously commissioned a musical telephone kiosk.
When the battery eventually runs out of steam then the piece will remain in place, serving as a sort of relic.
So take a stroll beside the concrete behemoth, out towards the slip-road to nowhere, and go and plug yourself in!
Update: the installation’s battery ran out on 23rd June 2012.
(photo from Skyliner’s Art in Architecture tour, by Gareth Hacking)
In celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee I was asked by the BBC to discuss major regional events in Greater Manchester since the year 2000.
A guide to the venues of Sounds From the Other City 2012, featuring tales from a Chapel Street crypt, a time capsule, the smallest listed building in Salford, William Mitchell’s Minut Men and a very special wall!
Photography by Jennifer Brookes
Jennifer used lemon juice to partially destroy the film before developing.
Please click the image to read the brochure in full screen
Northern Quarter Stories
The wonderful Documentally came to visit to help out with the Northern Quarter Stories project.
The project is about collecting peoples stories of the area through a variety of ways, many of which includes pub interviews, like mine. There are lovely beer mats distributed around the area with details of the project and how to contribute and a group of reporters will be out on the streets over the coming weeks.
He interviewed me at The Castle yesterday and you can listen to it below.
By a nicely-timed coincidence Mark Kennedy, the man who made the mural I mention during this, wandered into the pub and agreed to be interviewed too. Do look out for that on the audioboo channel that has been set up for the project here
Whilst the point of the project is to share stories from the area then I thought this is a nice opportunity for me to write about my most recent Northern Quarter story.
A few days ago whilst gazing at rooftops and sneaking around buildings I perhaps shouldn’t be in, I found some treasure.
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Skyliner is dedicated to the pursuit of rare and fascinating art and architecture, and the hidden histories contained within the concrete of a city.
Based in Manchester - the Original Modern City.
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