Salford Quays,
The tram from Manchester centre gets you to Salford Quays in ten minuets, guiding one past Piccidilli Gardens, through St Peters Square, and past the GMEX centre, and alongside the Bridgewater canal and Manchester Shipping canal at the Panoma viaduct. its a great trip.
Piccidilli Gardens- was a £10 million international competition, won collectively by Art2Architecture, EDAW, Tadeo Ando Architects, Ove Arup and was completed in 2001.
Work to make two popular Manchester public spaces more inviting starts in the next few days.
Quote from Neil Avatar on 12th Janurary www.skyscrapercity.com
'At award-winning Piccadilly Gardens work starts on 15 January to ensure the grass is greener – raising edges and widening paths slightly to discourage people from taking short cuts across the turf.
Figures show that more than 28 million people walk across the Gardens each year and the sheer volume of pedestrian traffic means the grass has become worn and muddy in places. The alterations should mean it keeps its green glory.
The City Council will also create an environmentally-friendly ‘green’ roof, consisting of wildlife-attracting plants, on top of the pavilion building which contains Caffe Nero and Rice.
It follows work last year to create a borehole using naturally-stored water from beneath the city centre to irrigate the gardens and keep the 180-jet fountain, one of the largest in Europe, topped up.'
Having vivited the area a few times in the past couple of weeks, the improvements are done, I can say it is a definate improvement if the newely laid astroturf remains looking as green! There has been much negative response to the improvements though, people questioning the title 'award winning gardens' It is nice to see Tado Ando's buildings actually occupied for years they have been empty, probably due to high rent.
However, the 28million people who experience the space every year are a reflection of its success, in the summer people cool off in the dominant fountain, in winter people are willling pay £7 per hour to ice skate.
'The principal aim is to explore how lighting can decisively contribute to a welcoming and stimulating night-time public realm and turns Piccadilly Gardens into a 24 hour space in a 24 hour city.'
Found on
www.art2architecture.co.uk/reconnected/piccadilly
Was a surprise to me, the area isn't well lit at night, one would not feel safe to pass through it alone. It surprised me that this was a design concept for the gardens!
The GMEX centre has been renamed Manchester Central. It will host the festival pavilion from the 28th June- 15th July, the pavilion was designed by Stephenson Bell. Festival city will when many perormance events, cheap tasty foos and drink events will be happining accross the city
for more information check out:
www.manchesterinternationalfestival.com
When at Salford Quays there is a vast contrast between high spec architecture and vast spaces of unused dockland, some areas have been refurbished, the promenade between running alondside the Lowry centre is pleasent with an avenue of trees, standard benced in pairs, litter bins and lamp posts all with the Salford council logo.
The Lowry centre designed by Michael Wilford and Buro Happold, (Wayfinding System and "Artworks at the Lowry Gallery" by Reich+Petch Design International)was completed in 2000 with the help for £21m of National Lottery funding.
There is a pleasent mingling of classes between the Lowry with its plays and art exhibitions, and the outlet mall opposite it, which houses high street stalls at knock off prices. The forms in the outlet maul are modelled on the forms of boats, it is a pleasant environment.
opposite the Lowry centre on the other side of the Manchester Shipping canal is the Imperial war museum Nprth designed by Daniel Libeskind. This has a viewing platform from which one can view the whole of Salford docks, the old Trafford stadium, Central manchester in the distance and even the Peak District.
The Lowry constantly houses LS Lowry's work, 'one of teh most popular and best loved 20th century artists' (quote from the lowry leaflet), however it is the changing exhibitions that keep the centre alive. However there was a new addition to the Lowry, an animation by 'Brown Bog' to Oasis's album 'Masterplan'. It shows the band walking trough Lowry's paintings, with some modern day ammendments to the landscapes.
from April - June the spectacular photographs of international photojournalist Ian Berry are being shown. There are two extremely moving exhibitions
'In the North' where he quotes 'though I wa born and grew up in the North of England, I was in the odd situation of being English and knowing very little about England, having spent most of my life abroard' It seems where ever he went people warmed to him, his pictures have masses of feeling. From this exhibition two photographs jumped out at me. I could see my reflection in the photograph watching an old chap who was spectating a wedding in 1973. The time and generation gaps were thought provoking. Also a photograph of two happy Indian immagrant children, in Leister 1976, standing infront of a white wall with the graffitti 'WHITES RULE' spawled accross it, was moving.
The legacy of the Independant group 23 March. Tate Britain.
In 1979 the Arts Council made a film ‘Fathers of Pop’, it reflects the 1960’s view of the Independent Group. A group from 1952-5 consisting of writers, thinkers and creative practitioners including Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi, William Turnbull; architects Alison and Peter Smithson, James Stirling and Colin St John Wilson.
The group had a radical approach to looking at contemporary culture ‘as found’ and used a range of sources including science fiction magazines, Jackson Pollocks paintings, Hollywood film, helicopter design, the streets of London’s East End and Modernist Architecture.
I listened to Ben Highmore, Nigel Whiteley and Jeremy Hunt. They linked and discussed technology, architecture, mass culture, fine art and advertising.
Here’s what I enjoyed:
Sci Fi magasine cover
Jackson Pollock at Work
The following picture is from www.fao.org/docrep
Ben Highmore
‘A World Dusted with Strontium 90: Art Brutalism and the Independent group’
Ben Highmore talked about the Brutalism after the 2nd world war. The sickly common occurrence of half exposed interior of houses bombed in WW2 gave surrealism in the everyday landscape.
The effects of the war- were that man became machine. The memory of the enemy was machine, therefore all humans were seen as machines and this is where ideas of cybernetics begun.
Quotes ‘the Wreckage of Progress’, in disaster is opportunity and visa versa
Nigel Whiteley
‘Theory and Banham in the Fourth Machine Age’
Rayner Banham wrote of two machine ages, Nigel Whitely identifies five
The first was when the power of machines was revolutionarily replacing human muscle. The invent of technology brought on a qualitative decline.
The Second Machine age. Technology was everywhere, it was predictable. People did not love it they just had it. The Bauhaus for example acclaimed for providing chick mass produced inexpensive products was also responsible for intolerable inhumane light fittings, ergonomics had become a second to aesthetics. Terrance Conran in the 1960’s acknowledged a mass culture of greed- instead of needing, people began to want – designing was now about creating desire.
Out of this the 1960’s hippie revolution was born ‘the changing culture was breaking out of the shackles of machienary’
However this make/label/model obsession is still part of our culture, we have everything but want it be the best or at least the newest.
The Third Machine Age. Ben Highmore thought was an age of powerful remains where technology governed social relationships since technology has been about it has created the context and frame for creativity. Equipment became moulded to the individual user, identity was gained by the paint image on one’s car, the Greece lightning car and personality implications of it is a classic example.
Human values took a backseat to objects and the seventies and eighties were the individual eras, private stereos and TV’s allowed people to entertain themselves rather than to be sociable. People were all dressed up with nowhere to go which is an awful feeling.
The Fourth Machine Age. Inter'ness'. Interactive. Interface- we can reach out anywhere in the world, we have our lives in our pockets with mobile pones duplicated as computers, information is at our fingertips. We can make ourselves famous for fifteen minutes from our couch with a laptop on U-Tube.
The 5th Machine Age. The scary future! Some scientists envision a day when government surveillance systems are imbedded in our skin. Much like electronic tagging of those on bail. A life where we are part human and part robot, where and we work with machines as is shown in films such a I Robot, Casper and Wallace and Grommit- ironically things always go wrong! It is unlikely that technology will become this extreme, despite the occurrence of escalators leading up the small steps to gyms in America! However Nigel Whitely believes that technology will remain important. And that radical thinking will make some processes obsolete i.e. the generalised role of the landscape architect/ Urban designer. When one concept ceases to exist and another is developed.
The third speaker was Jeremy Hunt who is a multidisciplinary artist who believes in collaborating art and architecture, he pointed out that there is no individual activity in culture and that architecture is the relationship between people and institutions. He sees the future for life in urban planning as group play. He points out that magazine’s were an interface for people to get involved in the visual culture.
He praises radical designers, who think outside the box, like Cedric Price, and the Archigram collaboration of the 1960’s. He is interested in interactive architecture
www.noxarch.com
http://www.archigram.net/projects_pages/walking_city.html
Check out the camouflaged house by FAT Architects http://fashionarchitecturetaste.com/
Jeremy Hunt also commented on pavilions, they are being commissioned for lots of London’s parks at present and are a sign that urban planning of tomorrow will be about group activity.
His finishing note was that it is all our responsibility to choose the future culture.
The group had a radical approach to looking at contemporary culture ‘as found’ and used a range of sources including science fiction magazines, Jackson Pollocks paintings, Hollywood film, helicopter design, the streets of London’s East End and Modernist Architecture.
I listened to Ben Highmore, Nigel Whiteley and Jeremy Hunt. They linked and discussed technology, architecture, mass culture, fine art and advertising.
Here’s what I enjoyed:
Sci Fi magasine cover
Jackson Pollock at Work
The following picture is from www.fao.org/docrep
Ben Highmore
‘A World Dusted with Strontium 90: Art Brutalism and the Independent group’
Ben Highmore talked about the Brutalism after the 2nd world war. The sickly common occurrence of half exposed interior of houses bombed in WW2 gave surrealism in the everyday landscape.
The effects of the war- were that man became machine. The memory of the enemy was machine, therefore all humans were seen as machines and this is where ideas of cybernetics begun.
Quotes ‘the Wreckage of Progress’, in disaster is opportunity and visa versa
Nigel Whiteley
‘Theory and Banham in the Fourth Machine Age’
Rayner Banham wrote of two machine ages, Nigel Whitely identifies five
The first was when the power of machines was revolutionarily replacing human muscle. The invent of technology brought on a qualitative decline.
The Second Machine age. Technology was everywhere, it was predictable. People did not love it they just had it. The Bauhaus for example acclaimed for providing chick mass produced inexpensive products was also responsible for intolerable inhumane light fittings, ergonomics had become a second to aesthetics. Terrance Conran in the 1960’s acknowledged a mass culture of greed- instead of needing, people began to want – designing was now about creating desire.
Out of this the 1960’s hippie revolution was born ‘the changing culture was breaking out of the shackles of machienary’
However this make/label/model obsession is still part of our culture, we have everything but want it be the best or at least the newest.
The Third Machine Age. Ben Highmore thought was an age of powerful remains where technology governed social relationships since technology has been about it has created the context and frame for creativity. Equipment became moulded to the individual user, identity was gained by the paint image on one’s car, the Greece lightning car and personality implications of it is a classic example.
Human values took a backseat to objects and the seventies and eighties were the individual eras, private stereos and TV’s allowed people to entertain themselves rather than to be sociable. People were all dressed up with nowhere to go which is an awful feeling.
The Fourth Machine Age. Inter'ness'. Interactive. Interface- we can reach out anywhere in the world, we have our lives in our pockets with mobile pones duplicated as computers, information is at our fingertips. We can make ourselves famous for fifteen minutes from our couch with a laptop on U-Tube.
The 5th Machine Age. The scary future! Some scientists envision a day when government surveillance systems are imbedded in our skin. Much like electronic tagging of those on bail. A life where we are part human and part robot, where and we work with machines as is shown in films such a I Robot, Casper and Wallace and Grommit- ironically things always go wrong! It is unlikely that technology will become this extreme, despite the occurrence of escalators leading up the small steps to gyms in America! However Nigel Whitely believes that technology will remain important. And that radical thinking will make some processes obsolete i.e. the generalised role of the landscape architect/ Urban designer. When one concept ceases to exist and another is developed.
The third speaker was Jeremy Hunt who is a multidisciplinary artist who believes in collaborating art and architecture, he pointed out that there is no individual activity in culture and that architecture is the relationship between people and institutions. He sees the future for life in urban planning as group play. He points out that magazine’s were an interface for people to get involved in the visual culture.
He praises radical designers, who think outside the box, like Cedric Price, and the Archigram collaboration of the 1960’s. He is interested in interactive architecture
www.noxarch.com
http://www.archigram.net/projects_pages/walking_city.html
Check out the camouflaged house by FAT Architects http://fashionarchitecturetaste.com/
Jeremy Hunt also commented on pavilions, they are being commissioned for lots of London’s parks at present and are a sign that urban planning of tomorrow will be about group activity.
His finishing note was that it is all our responsibility to choose the future culture.
house Boats Shad Thames
click for Open Garden Squares weekend
'The Pheonix Garden Run as an ecological garden the planting is a mix of ornamental and native species to encourage a wide range of wildlife. The site is sheltered and almost frost free and half hardy plants thrive including bananas, Echium and shrubby Pelargoniums. Areas of the garden have been developed as habitats with log stacks, ponds and a wildflower bank. The garden supports a large population of common frogs, stag beetles live in the rotting logs and resident breeding birds: blue and great tits, blackbirds, robin and wrens can usually be seen. Flocks of house sparrow and greenfinch visit daily and occasional visitors include kestrel, sparrowhawk, woodpecker, mallard and wagtails. The Phoenix Garden has won first prize for Best Environmental Garden in the Camden in Bloom competition for the past five years.'
& all in the secret heart of London- Faboulous!
The house boats in Shad Thames are in an ideal location. We spoke to a resident who rocked up there 5 years ago when he ran out of fuel & hadn't budged since! However there is now a company renovating the old barges & renting them out at around £250 per month.
One of the boat roofs is dedicated to the communities bikes, the others are gardens, & it is possible to hop from one boat to another willy nilly.
'The Pheonix Garden Run as an ecological garden the planting is a mix of ornamental and native species to encourage a wide range of wildlife. The site is sheltered and almost frost free and half hardy plants thrive including bananas, Echium and shrubby Pelargoniums. Areas of the garden have been developed as habitats with log stacks, ponds and a wildflower bank. The garden supports a large population of common frogs, stag beetles live in the rotting logs and resident breeding birds: blue and great tits, blackbirds, robin and wrens can usually be seen. Flocks of house sparrow and greenfinch visit daily and occasional visitors include kestrel, sparrowhawk, woodpecker, mallard and wagtails. The Phoenix Garden has won first prize for Best Environmental Garden in the Camden in Bloom competition for the past five years.'
& all in the secret heart of London- Faboulous!
The house boats in Shad Thames are in an ideal location. We spoke to a resident who rocked up there 5 years ago when he ran out of fuel & hadn't budged since! However there is now a company renovating the old barges & renting them out at around £250 per month.
One of the boat roofs is dedicated to the communities bikes, the others are gardens, & it is possible to hop from one boat to another willy nilly.
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