Urbis
Manchester, United Kingdom
Ian Simpson Architects

Ian Simpson creates a monumental shape for a small glass Museum, where the urban surroundings become part of the exhibition

By Hugh Pearman

© Dennis Gilbert/View

For more photos click on 'photos & drawings' above. To see the people and products behind this project click on 'people & products.'

Manchester, which regards itself with some justification as the second city of England, has a proud record when it comes to cultural regeneration. The city, which was once one of the world’s great manufacturing powerhouses, has adapted better than most to the postindustrial age. Three recent projects—Daniel Libeskind’s Imperial War Museum, Sir Michael Hopkins’s extension to the city’s 19th-century art gallery, and Ian Simpson’s Urbis—give the flavor. In this triumvirate of very different but similarly sized projects (each cost around £30 million), Urbis is by far the strangest.

Strange not only because of its hermetic architecture—this is a taut-skinned glass object that looks like nothing so much as a conning tower of a huge submarine surfacing in the urban core—but because of its content, or lack of it.

Urbis was not built in response to any overwhelming need for it, but rather to act as a symbol of rebirth after an I.R.A. terrorist bomb devastated Manchester’s urban center in 1996. Ian Simpson, one of a squad of excellent younger architects who emerged in the city in the 1990s, played a key role in the urbanistic elements of the reconstruction, which has an overall value of at least £500 million. In terms of the program, Urbis was to be an interactive museum devoted to the city and urbanism. In the words of Simpson, it is "not a museum so much as a series of experiences of different cities around the world."

Only six stories high, Urbis’s narrow banding of double glass walls gives it a heroic scale, suggesting many more floors. The building works on the cascade principle: You take a scenic funicular-railway car that rises up through the building to the fourth level, and then work your way back down through the exhibition levels, by stair or lift. But the top two floors, which are occupied by a reservation-only restaurant and bar, and which have the best views, are inaccessible to normal visitors.

As the glossy prow of an effectively triangular plan at an important urban intersection, this reworking of New York’s Flatiron building plays its role with aplomb, even with a meaningless cranked prong on top. Because it rises from a low base, the angled roof is clearly visible. This is well handled, with a central spine of glazing surrounded by prepatinated copper tiles. Inside, the succession of four open floor decks spiraling up the building succeed in creating spatial dynamism.

Formal name of Project:
Urbis

Location:
Manchester, United Kingdom

Gross square footage:
79,500 sq.ft

Total construction cost:
£30 million

Owner:
Manchester City Council

Architect:
Ian Simpson Architects
Riverside
4 Commercial Street
Manchester M15 4RQ
Tel: + 44 161 835 2345
Fax: + 44 161 839 4808
Email: i.simpson@iansimpsonarchitects.com
www.iansimpsonarchitects.com