THE CLASSIC WEEKENDER
Manchester’s Guide for the Creative Tourist
Creativetourist.com is a monthly online magazine and series of city guides that have been put together by Manchester Museums Consortium. This group of nine museums and galleries in Manchester are separate venues that share a dual vision: the desire to stage intelligent, thoughtprovoking and outward looking exhibitions and events; and to celebrate the city in which they live, work and play. Twice a year, Creativetourist. com publishes insider guides to the city – uncovering not just galleries and museums but shops, bars, leftfield events, restaurants and nights out that are distinctly, uniquely Mancunian.
These guides could not be produced without the support, help and vision of Cornerhouse, Imperial War Museum North, Industrial Powerhouse, The Lowry, Manchester Art Gallery, The Manchester Museum, MOSI, the Museum of Science & Industry, People’s History Museum, Urbis, Visit Manchester and The Whitworth Art Gallery.
This project would not be possible without the support of:
01 INTRODUCTION 02 WE’LL LEAD YOU FOLLOW 03 IDEAS WORTH FIGHTING FOR 05 FROM WALLPAPER TO DARWIN 07 A WORLD OBSERVED: DOROTHY BOHM 09 IMAGE CAPTURE: DON MCCULLIN 11 RENAISSANCE MAN 13 READ MANCHESTER 14 WALK MANCHESTER 15 TRAVEL CHECKLIST
Words by Susie Stubbs; design and art direction by Modern Designers. Special thanks to Joff Summerfield (cover image model) www.pennyfarthingworldtour.com
FROM GRADE II LISTED BUILDINGS TO DAZZLING CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE; FROM LEFTFIELD ART TO MUSEUMS COLLECTIONS OF INTERNATIONAL RENOWN; FROM GUIDED WALKS TO DIGITAL DOWNLOADS; FROM ONE OF THE WORLD’S LEADING PHOTOGRAPHERS TO ONE OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST LIBRARIES: THIS IS YOUR INDISPENSABLE GUIDE TO THE HISTORY, MUSEUMS, COLLECTIONS AND MORE OF MANCHESTER.
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John Rylands Library
WE’LL LEAD, YOU FOLLOW.
02 Let’s get things straight: Manchester is a city with a past. The (Manchester) Guardian once argued, ‘What Manchester does today, London does tomorrow’ while, more recently, the author Stuart Maconie wrote, ‘Manchester has fancied itself rotten for as long as anyone can remember’. The thing is, Manchester fancies itself for a reason. Well, three to be precise: industry, attitude and political reform. It was Manchester that gave rise to Socialism, the Co-Operative Movement and Free Trade; it was here that the Suffragettes began their campaigns; where Marx and Engels cooked up the Communist Manifesto. Manchester was the original industrial city, outstripping London during the Industrial Revolution to become the largest centre of manufacturing in the world. Breathtakingly ambitious, this was a place where people came to make their names – and did, with an astonishing degree of success. This is not the kind of past that a city forgets. Go into any one of its public institutions – the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester Museum, Manchester Art Gallery – and you’ll find the evidence. The city’s painting, sculpture, photography and textiles collections are among the best in Britain. The Hallé Orchestra was the country’s first permanent, full-time orchestra and is still going strong. The site of the world’s oldest surviving passenger railway now forms part of MOSI, the Museum of Science & Industry.
The People’s History Museum re-opened in February 2010. A national museum dedicated to the history of working life in Britain, its archives reveal a city whose fight for democracy spread across the globe. But before you write all this off as ‘just’ history, think on. The Whitworth, whose textile and wallpaper archives are only rivalled by the V&A in London, is also one of the region’s leading centres of contemporary art. The Lowry, which holds the largest (and most varied) collection of work by L.S. Lowry in the world, also commissions new art and performance, as does its neighbour, Imperial War Museum North. ‘Manchester has become a model of the post-industrial city, just as it was the model of the industrial city,’ says writer, broadcaster and historian, Jonathan Schofield. So while Manchester is a city that has a past, with some of the UK’s most outstanding historic buildings and museums collections, it is also one that has its eyes fixed on the future. The joy of visiting Manchester today is that, without too much effort, you get to experience a slice of both.
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IDEAS ARE WORTH FIGHTING FOR. This spring, after a £12.5m redevelopment that includes the construction of an entirely new wing alongside the overhaul of the Grade II listed Pump House, the People’s History Museum re-opens for business.
The People’s History Museum
‘This is a museum that matters to everyone,’ says Deputy Director Andy Pearce. ‘It tells the story of the march towards British democracy – it’s the only place in the UK that does that.’ The building itself is a showstopper. Made of Corten steel, its striking rusty façade provides a contrast to its glass-and-steel or Portland stone neighbours. And form follows function: the museum’s largely windowless upper floors are wrapped in steel to provide the climatecontrolled home for its collection. The ground floor is, however, glassfronted, enticing passers-by inside and providing the building’s hub (this is where you’ll find the riverfront café, for example). ‘The change from the ground floor, which is light and airy, to the darker museum area, is deliberate. It creates the sense of an Aladdin’s cave,’ says Pearce. The Museum itself has doubled in size, allowing more of its collection to be on display, while the galleries trace a path through 200 years of political campaigning.
The People’s History Museum Left Bank, Spinningfields M3 3ER Telephone 0161 838 9190 www.phm.org.uk Re-opens 13 February Open: 10am-5pm daily Free
The Museum opens with Carried Away, an exhibition that takes a sideways look at protest over the past 100 years: in it, it displays photographs of protestors such as the Suffragettes, many of whom were forcibly removed (or carried away) by the authorities they challenged. Manchester is rightly excited about the re-opening of the Museum – this is a city that has had more than its fair share of political reform, and the story of national political change is often a Mancunian one, too. But the importance of the place goes way beyond local pride. ‘One of our trustees was the late Jack Jones, a man who fought in the Spanish Civil War and was a trade union leader,’ says Pearce. ‘He used to remind people that “votes didn’t fall off the Christmas tree”. The right to vote had to be fought for, it had to be won – and we tell that story.’
CLOSE BY The People’s History Museum is part of Spinningfields, a new area of the city rising by the banks of the River Irwell.The Museum itself has the sunniest riverside bar in Manchester (according to Andy Pearce), one that opens beyond normal museum opening hours, while the immediate neighbourhood is dotted with restaurants such as Giraffe, Carluccio’s, Gourmet Burger Kitchen andWagamama – offering reliably good (rather than gastronomically exciting) food. Close by sits the John Rylands Library, a fabulous neoGothic confection that speaks volumes about Manchester’s grand industrial past – it was recently described by historian Ed Glinert as ‘one of the world’s great libraries’. Built in 1900 in memory of cotton magnate John Rylands, this cathedral to learning houses four million texts and is decorated with intricate stonework, stained glass and ornate bookcases that cluster around a cavernous reading room. But the real draw here is the collection: it spans five millennia and includes the St John Fragment, the oldest known surviving New Testament text. Peruse their collection at your leisure and then take a break in their downstairs cafe.The John Rylands Library is off Deansgate and close to House of Fraser.This six-floor department store is good for a spot of shopping but, more than that, it retains some of the building’s original grace, such as the Art Deco façade designed by J.W. Beaumont.
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Although the store now promotes itself under the House of Fraser moniker, it hasn’t always suffered such a prosaic name: for almost 70 years, this consumer Mecca was affectionately known as Kendal’s (it was originally owned by Messrs Kendal, Milner and Faulkner, and ‘Kendal, Milne and Co’ can still be seen above the store’s entrances). When Kendal’s was purchased by Harrod’s in 1919, the original name was dropped – but then swiftly restored after customer protests. Sadly, the decision to re-name it House of Fraser in 2005 went through without so much as a murmur, although for most locals the building remains, and will always be known as, Kendal’s.
Spinningfields www.spinningfieldsonline.com John Rylands Library 150 Deansgate M3 3EH Telephone 0161 306 0555 www.library.manchester.ac.uk House of Fraser 98 Deansgate M3 2QG Telephone 0844 800 3744 www.houseoffraser.co.uk
FROM WALLPAPER TO DARWIN: A SHORT HOP FROM PAST TO PRESENT
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Wallpaper – more of a back drop than the main event, right? Not so according to the Whitworth Art Gallery, which this spring launches the first ever UK exhibition of artists’ wallpapers. As this show demonstrates, wallpaper, although often sidelined as just a decorative, domestic product, has long been exploited by the likes of Niki de St. Phalle, Michael Craig-Martin and Damien Hirst for more artistic purposes. Take Thomas Demand, one of the foremost conceptual artists working today. For this exhibition, he has covered the entire South Gallery of the Whitworth (a gallery whose floorto-ceiling windows open out onto the Whitworth Park) with his Ivy wallpaper – intricate pieces of paper cut out and photographed that, together, form a work of lifelike beauty. Or consider Sonia Boyce, whose Clapping (a repeated black-and-white handprint) creates a pattern that is somehow far more menacing. The Walls Are Talking isn’t all about high art, though. As well as looking at how 30 international artists have used wallpaper to explore themes of racism, culture, gender and sexuality, the exhibition also features wallpapers produced for the commercial market – such as a Spice Girls paper – which creates a historical and cultural frame for the artists’ works.
Right Hand Lady (1972), Allen Jones
TheWalls Are Talking Whitworth Art Gallery Oxford Road M15 6ER Telephone 0161 275 7450 www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk Until 3 May Open: 10am-5pm Mon-Sat; 12-4pm Sun Free
The Whitworth is a fitting gallery for an exhibition of this nature. It is the only place in the country where wallpaper is always on display, while its own collection contains thousands of samples of wall coverings. And it’s not just wallpaper that the Whitworth is renowned for. The Gallery’s textiles collection is second only to the V&A, while its historic British watercolours are hung in park-side galleries in thoughtful, intriguing displays. The Gallery, meanwhile, is testament to Manchester’s industrial past. It was part of a bequeath to the city by Sir Joseph Whitworth, a Victorian entrepreneur who made a mint during the Industrial Revolution and chose to spend his money on philanthropic acts – he helped found the Manchester School of Design, for example, and backed the Mechanics’ Institute in Manchester (which went on to become UMIST, now part of The University of Manchester). When it opened in 1889, the Whitworth Institute (as it was known then) set out to ‘securea source of perpetual gratification to the people of Manchester and cultivate taste and knowledge of the fine arts of painting, sculpture and architecture’, which, as its current director notes, ‘seems no bad aim today’. The Walls Are Talking includes loans from the V&A, private collectors and work direct from artists, and it underlines just what the Whitworth (and Manchester at large) is best at: treading the fine line between high and popular art, and between the historic and the contemporary.
Nana (1972), Niki de St Phalle
CLOSE BY Just down the road from theWhitworth, and part of the AlfredWaterhouse-designed university campus (Waterhouse also designed the gloriously neo-Gothic Manchester Town Hall), you’ll find The Manchester Museum. One of the UK’s leading university museums, with over three million objects in its stores, the Museum has an interesting history. It has, for example, a long association with Charles Darwin.When it opened in 1890, the Museum took as its guiding principle Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection – promptly setting itself up in competition with the then anti-Darwinist Natural History Museum in London.The result was impressive: the museum created a model for natural history museums that was subsequently copied across the globe. So it’s appropriate that in 2010, as part of the anniversary celebrations of the birth of Darwin, Manchester Museum goes all out to celebrate the life and legacy of the great man.The main event is Charles Darwin: Evolution of a Scientist. As befits the revolutionary scientist, the exhibition itself is no dry and dusty affair: it is presented in a graphic novel style, with illustrations from artist Chrissie Morgan, and includes objects that were collected and studied by Darwin himself, such as a finch he ensnared during the voyage of The Beagle. As well as looking at the scientist’s achievements, the Museum examines the darker side of Darwinism, too: how the theory has been used to support extreme views such as eugenics, for example, alongside the contemporary debate on the relationship between science and faith.
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Both theWhitworth and the Museum have excellent cafes (theWhitworth’s is particularly recommended, run by culinary entrepreneur Peter Booth), while nearby Kro Bar is a good bet for cask ales, Danish-inspired grub and atmosphere.This independent pub is housed in the former Temperance Society (how’s that for irony), a Grade II listed building on Oxford Road that was restored by local architects, Stephenson Bell – its original features merging sympathetically with newer ones (such as the long bar that links the original main rooms of the house). Situated halfway between the Museum and theWhitworth, Kro provides a good stopping-off spot, but be warned: it’s slap-bang opposite the student union and can get busy after lectures.
Charles Darwin: Evolution of a Scientist The Manchester Museum Oxford Road M13 9PL Telephone 0161 275 2634 www.manchester.ac.uk/museum Kro Bar Oxford Road M13 9PG Telephone 0161 274 3100 www.kro.co.uk
A WORLD OBSERVED: DOROTHY BOHM Manchester Art Gallery also merges the past with the present in late spring. A World Observed traces the career of one of the doyennes of British photography, Dorothy Bohm, and plunders this octogenarian’s archives to put together the first real retrospective of her work ever to be staged.
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AWorld Observed 1940-2010: Photographs by Dorothy Bohm Manchester Art Gallery Mosley Street M2 3JL Telephone 0161 235 8888 www.manchestergalleries.org 24 April-30 August Open: 10am-5pm Tues-Sun & Bank Holiday Mondays (closed Mon & Good Friday) Free
The exhibition features 250 works that trace a career spanning six decades and several continents. The Prussian-born Bohm, who fled to England at the outbreak of WW2, is one of the founding directors of The Photographers’ Gallery in London. This exhibition in Manchester walks us through her career, from early black and white portraits (many from Manchester, incidentally, where she first trained and worked as a commercial photographer), through experiments with Polaroids in the 1980s, to her more recent abstract work. While Bohm isn’t a household name, she has had a huge influence on British photography, working through the Photographers’ Gallery to establish the discipline as a serious art form and giving emerging artists their big breaks. ‘She gave people like Martin Parr their first shows,’ says her daughter (and cocurator of the exhibition), Monica Bohm. ‘So she is incredibly well respected in the industry – she’s the elder stateswoman of British photography, if you like, and is an honorary fellow of The Royal Photographic Society.’
The exhibition in Manchester is likely to interest both photo aficionados and those interested in social history – Monica Bohm describes her mother’s early work as ‘humanist street photography, capturing the moment in the manner of Cartier Bresson’. Curators will reconstruct both Bohm’s Manchester studio and her darkroom, and it’s hoped that relatives of those originally shot by Bohm in the 1940s will attend the show. Bohm, meanwhile, continues to take pictures that belie her advancing years. ‘People are often surprised by the youth and vibrancy of her colour work,’ says Monica Bohm. ‘She focuses on fragments of the urban landscape – mannequins, advertising hoardings – that are otherwise overlooked. These photographs have an abstract quality; there’s a deliberate spatial ambiguity and you’re not quite sure what you’re looking at. But nothing is manipulated – she will still only work with film.’
Mexico (1953), Dorothy Bohm
St. Jean-de-Luz (1986), Dorothy Bohm
CLOSE BY Manchester has long championed the achievements and causes of its daughters.The city was home to the Suffragette movement and was the location for some of the most radical political thinking of the past century: everything from the birth of Socialism to the establishment of the principal of Free Trade. Elizabeth Gaskell, for example, was one of the first writers to illustrate the lives of the working classes, particularly through her 1848 novel, Mary Barton (she was in good company – otherVictorian writers who produced books in the ‘industrial novel’ genre include Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli and George Eliot). Gaskell’s former home at 84 Plymouth Grove is now being restored. Although the house is closed, there are some events planned for 2010, the 200th anniversary of her birth. A little out of the city centre, Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst’s former home (where theWomen’s Social and Political Union was founded in October 1903) is now a museum; alongside a history of the campaign for votes for women, the Pankhurst Centre continues to provide resources for women, viewing itself as a ‘living memorial’. Closer to town, the Free Trade Hall, built near the site of the Peterloo Massacre and itself the site of an infamous Suffragette protest, is now the Radisson Edwardian Hotel. Its original façade gives a flavour of a building that saw both political reform and musical innovation (this was where, in 1966, Bob Dylan was heckled as a ‘Judas’ for betraying his folk roots). Another historic hotel nearby is the Midland Hotel, which opened in 1903 as a monument to its owners, the Midland Railway Company. It is perhaps the city’s best known hotel, recognisable by the pink and brown terracotta tiled frontage, and boasts many famous guests: it’s where Charles Rolls met Henry Royce, whereWinston Churchill dined and where Laurence Olivier stayed while filming Brideshead Revisited.
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Just a stone’s throw from both hotels is The Bridgewater Hall, one of Europe’s most highly regarded classical music venues, built in 1996 to the tune of £42m. And, just across the road from that, is the Briton’s Protection, a snug pub whose traditional ambience is only enhanced by a whisky menu boasting over 150 varieties of the amber nectar.Traditionalists should also try out the British-inspired menu at Sam’s Chophouse, an atmospheric pub in the city centre described by The Guardian as ‘aVictorian fantasy meets Hogwarts’. The Pankhurst Centre 60-62 Nelson Street M13 9WP Telephone 0161 273 5673 www.culture24.org.uk/am25570 Elizabeth Gaskell House 84 Plymouth Grove M13 9LW www.elizabethgaskellhouse.org The Radisson Edwardian Hotel Free Trade Hall, Peter Street M2 5GP Telephone 0161 835 9929 www.radissonedwardian.com The Bridgewater Hall Lower Mosley Street M2 3WS Telephone 0161 907 9000 www.bridgewater-hall.co.uk Briton’s Protection 50 Great Bridgewater Street M1 5LE Telephone 0161 236 5895 www.thebritonsprotection.co.uk
IMAGE CAPTURE: DON MCCULLIN Don McCullin, Hue, Vietnam (1968), NikWheeler — taken with McCullin’s camera
Shaped byWar: Photographs by Don McCullin Imperial War Museum North The Quays,TraffordWharf, Trafford Park M17 1TZ Telephone 0161 836 4000 www.north.iwm.org.uk Until 13 June Open: 10am-6pm daily Free
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Cuban Missile Crisis protester with sign facing police line, London (1962), Don McCullin
Manchester hosts another special photography exhibition this spring, one that charts the life and career of Don McCullin. For 50 years, McCullin has produced some of the most definitive images of modern warfare, becoming a highly acclaimed photographer in the process (he has been described in The Guardian as ‘one of the world’s best living war photographers’). The man himself is something of a legend. The former Teddy Boy tearaway could often be found on the frontline, capturing scenes of war as they occurred, while the list of conflicts he has documented is dizzying: Cyprus, the Congo, Czechoslovakia, Vietnam, Biafra, Venezuela, Pakistan, Bangladesh, El Salvador, Northern Ireland, Chad, Cambodia. During his early career, McCullin focused on the casualties of war, once claiming that he wanted to ‘break the hearts and minds of secure people’ and yet, despite this, his work remains startlingly beautiful. The viewer can’t help but admire the aesthetic qualities of his images, even when they show the dead and dying. As such, McCullin’s work poses serious questions about the moral dilemma the photographer (and perhaps the viewer) faces: should he stay behind the camera, looking on, or should he put the camera down and help?
This exhibition at Imperial War Museum North, timed to mark McCullin’s 75th birthday, provides an intimate insight into the thought process behind these iconic and moving images of war. Alongside some 200 photographs are contact sheets, magazines and memorabilia (some items are on public display for the first time), while many of the black and white images have been printed by McCullin himself. His 18 years as a photojournalist for The Sunday Times are examined along with documents from the Imperial War Museum’s Archive that explain McCullin’s controversial exclusion from the 1982 Falklands war. In these papers, the Imperial War Museum makes the case for McCullin to be sent to cover the Falklands as its official photographer – the Ministry of Defence, presumably nervous of McCullin’s uncompromising honesty, refused to allow him access. Although McCullin’s last major war assignment for The Sunday Times was in Beirut in 1982, he has continued to document major conflicts such as the Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
CLOSE BY The award-winning, Daniel Libeskind-designed Imperial War Museum North opened in 2002 on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal.This stunning building, whose fragmented design represents a globe shattered by war (inside, it has sloping floors and is completely devoid of right angles), isn’t the only draw here: The Lowry sits opposite, with the two buildings joined by a footbridge that spans this spectacular waterfront.The Lowry may only be ten years old, but it nevertheless pays tribute to the industrial past of Salford and Manchester: the Ship Canal, along with the Bridgewater Canal, provided a vital route to export and import during the Industrial Revolution and helped secure Manchester’s role, for a while at least, as the world’s largest centre of manufacturing. As you’d expect,The Lowry takes its name from its collection: the largest holding of the work of LS Lowry in the world. The artist is perhaps best known for his renditions of working class life in industrial Salford and Manchester, and some of his most famous works can always be found on display at The Lowry. As part of the organisation’s tenth birthday celebrations,The Lowry launches Lowry Favourites, a new exhibition that brings the galleries to life with photographs, sound and film, as well as rarely seen works from private collections from around the country, all of which provide new insight into this most singular of painters. Just behind The Lowry you’ll be able to spot the fast-beingbuilt MediaCity (the new home of the BBC, due to open in 2011), while just down the road football and cricket fans can live the dream at either Manchester United’s football ground or Old Trafford. The Lowry Outlet Mall opposite is home to a few decent chain restaurants if you fancy a bite to eat (Pizza Express, Café Rouge), although both The Lowry and Imperial War Museum North house good cafes.
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Lowry Favourites The Lowry Pier 8, Salford Quays M50 3AZ Telephone 0843 208 6000 www.thelowry.com Until 6 June 2010 Open: 11am-5pm Sun-Fri; 10am-5pm Sat. Lowry Outlet Mall The Quays, Salford Quays, M50 3AH www.lowryoutletmall.com
Lifting Footbridge,The Quays
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RENAISSANC MAN. The Vitruvian Man , Leonardo daVinci
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If you want to get a whiff of life in Industrial Revolution Manchester, you’d best head to MOSI (the Museum of Science & Industry). It is built on the site of the world’s oldest surviving passenger railway station, with five of the original listed buildings still standing. Converted into a museum in the early 1980s, this extensive railway complex was, according to the Pevsner Architectural Guide, ‘an inland expression of the Liverpool Docks, and the volume of traffic both in terms of passengers and goods had never been tackled on such a scale before.’ The significance of this site can’t be underestimated: it was here, on 15 September 1830, that some 700 passengers and 50,000 onlookers gathered to witness the first ever run on the newly laid Manchester to Liverpool tracks. Although the day wasn’t without its dramas (including the death of William Huskisson, President of the Board of Trade, who slipped and fell into the path of the oncoming train), it did, as the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company hoped, change British industrial travel forever. Much of MOSI’s displays continue to shed light on both the railway and Manchester’s role in the Industrial Revolution, while trainspotters can enjoy a short journey via steam train on part of the original tracks.
Permanent collections aside, one of the star attractions at MOSI this spring is an exhibition of the life and work of Leonardo Da Vinci. The artist, as everyone knows, was not content to limit himself to any one discipline, and he was fascinated by the sciences, writing on subjects as diverse as geometry, human anatomy, philosophy and flora and fauna. He famously came up with detailed plans for a helicopter, military tank, parachute, automobile and submarine – inventions that were hundreds of years ahead of their time. This spring, these and other Da Vinci creations have been brought to life as large-scale interactive machines, handmade by contemporary Italian artisans. Displayed at MOSI, they have been created by Grande Exhibitions, the Anthropos Foundation and Pascal Cotte as part of Da Vinci – The Genius, the most comprehensive touring exhibition ever dedicated to this remarkable artist. Ten years in the making, the exhibition includes the UK premiere of the Secrets of Mona Lisa. Here, French engineer Pascal Cotte has used a revolutionary, 240 megapixel Multi-Spectral Imaging Camera to uncover a series of hitherto unverified facts about the world’s most famous painting, such as the original (and long since faded) colours used by Da Vinci and the true identity of the woman behind the portrait. Cotte has also been able to create the world’s only 360-degree walk-around replica of the Mona Lisa, enabling visitors to see the reverse of the painting.
MOSI entrance
DaVinci – The Genius MOSI Liverpool Road Castlefield M3 4FP Telephone 0844 847 2261 www.mosi.org.uk Untill 13 Jun 2010 Open: 10am-5pm daily; closed 24-26 Dec, 1 Jan £7.50/£5/£20 family ticket
CLOSE BY MOSI is next door to the original Granada TV studios. Granada kicked off British independent television (and was subject to its own exhibition at Urbis recently) and was founded in 1956 by cinematic entrepreneur, Sidney Bernstein – his decision to locate the company in Manchester based on the fact that people were more likely to stay in and watch the box in such a rainy, northern city. Rain? In Manchester?Well, it has been known, but should the sun shine during your stay, you’d be advised to head to Castlefield, an outdoor ‘urban heritage park’ that combines every element of Manchester’s recent past in its architecture: Roman ruins, Industrial Heritage cobbles and canals,Victorian viaducts, contemporary bridges and, in the distance, the towering 561-foot Hilton Tower, Manchester’s tallest building. It is here you can find the reconstructed Roman fort (little remains of the original fort, but a sympathetic reconstruction and detailed information boards fill in the gaps) and here also that the Bridgewater Canal opened in 1764, followed shortly by the Rochdale Canal in 1805.The canals, along with the railway station up at MOSI, once made Castlefield a hub of industrial commerce – although walking along its peaceful paths today you’d never know. If you fancy a bite to eat, stop off at Dukes 92 (our favourite Castlefield pub) for mansize plates of cheese and pate, or sample the seasonal menu at the riverside Choice. Or, if you want to head back into town, go via Cloud 23 at the Hilton (a 23rd floor bar whose cocktails are good but whose view over Manchester is better) or head back round to the clutch of restaurants at Spinningfields.Which, rather neatly, brings us back to where this particular guide began…
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Dukes 92 Castle Street, Castlefield M3 4LZ Telephone 0161 839 8642 www.dukes92.com Choice Castle Quay, Castlefield M15 4NT Telephone 0161 833 3400 www.choicebarandrestaurant.co.uk Cloud 23 Beetham Tower, Deansgate M3 4LQ Telephone 0161 870 1688 www.cloud23bar.com
Cloud 23
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READ MANCHESTER
Find out more about the history of Manchester. Here are our top three historical reads:
1 The Manchester Compendium: A Street by Street History of England’s Greatest Industrial City. Part travel guide, part history book, the Manchester Compendium documents in meticulous detail (and often with irreverent wit) the history of Manchester’s streets, buildings, sons and daughters. If you buy one book on the history of Manchester, make it this one. Written by acclaimed urban historian, Ed Glinert. The Manchester Compendium Ed Glinert, Penguin £10.99
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A Portrait of Manchester. Len Grant is one of Manchester’s finest photographers, and has spent his career documenting the slow rebirth of Manchester as it moves from industrial giant to 21st century city. Although this photo book focuses on contemporary Manchester, it also gives an insight into the grit of a city determined to regain its place at the global table. A Portrait of Manchester Len Grant, Halsgrove £12.95 Castlefield, Len Grant
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Manchester. Part of the Pevsner Architectural Guides series, this comprehensive book covers both historical and recent buildings and development. It can be a little dry at times, but for historical depth it’s hard to beat. Manchester — Pevsner Architectural Guides Claire Hartwell £9.99
Download this:
Take advantage of a series of free walking tours at both www.visitmanchester.com/trails and www.industrialpowerhouse.co.uk
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WALK MANCHESTER
Find out more about Manchester’s political, industrial and cultural past by walking through it. Here are our top three guided walks:
1 Tour of the Radisson (Free Trade Hall). Explore one of Manchester’s most historic sites, from the signed wall to the story of the Peterloo Massacre. Starts outside Manchester Central. 21 Feb & 25 Apr. £6/£5.
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Show me Deansgate. Politics, filthy rich, filthier poor, death, war, sex, philanthropy, stunning architecture and cutting edge Manchester, all on one street. Starts at Chetham’s School of Music, Main Gate, Long Millgate. 11 Mar. £6/£5.
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Town Hall Tour. No visit to Manchester is complete without a visit to this spectacular Victorian building, the focus of Mancunian public life over several generations. Starts at the Town Hall. 14 & 28 Feb, 4, 28 & 31 Mar, 11, 25 & 28 Apr. £6/£5.
To book one of the tours listed above, or find out about the many other guided walks on offer in Manchester, contact:
Manchester Visitor Information Centre Town Hall Extension, Lloyd Street, Manchester M60 2LA Telephone +44 (0)871 222 8223 Email touristinformation@ visitmanchester.com
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Tourist information For all travel, hotels and tourist information (and the best source of information on great offers and deals on accommodation and more), visit www.visitmanchester.com Once you’re in Manchester check out the Visitor Information Centre, Lloyd Street M60 2LA Telephone 0871 222 8223 www.manchester.gov.uk Open 10am-5.30pm Mon-Sat; 10.30am-4.30pm Sun & Bank Hols
Hotels There are so many hotels – and different kinds of hotels at that – in Manchester that it can be hard to pick the best one. To make life easy, here is our top three (you can catch the latest deals and offers on these and many more from www.visitmanchester.com) The Radisson Edwardian The former Free Trade Hall has been sumptuously and sympathetically converted into one of the city’s finest hotels: deluxe bedrooms, marble bathrooms, pool and great restaurant. Free Trade Hall Peter Street M2 5GP Telephone 0161 835 9929 www.radissonedwardian.com The Midland Hotel Another historic great (this is where Rolls met Royce), the Midland has been subject to a £15m overhaul that’s restored its Grade II-listed glory. Peter Street M60 2DS Telephone 0845 0345 777 www.qhotels.co.uk City Inn A stone’s throw from Piccadilly Station and with WiFi, Sky, flexible check-in and 24-hour room service. Piccadilly Place 1 Auburn Street M1 3DG Telephone 0161 242 1000 www.cityinn.com/manchester
Getting there Manchester Airport (to the South of the city centre) is served by a regular rail connection to Piccadilly Station (every 15 minutes or so; journeys take around 20 minutes). www.manchesterairport.co.uk Piccadilly Station is the main railway station; the Metroshuttle (www.gmpte. com) operates a free bus service connecting this, and the other city railway stations, to the city centre. Buses run every 5-10 minutes. Oxford Road, Deansgate and Victoria are the other city centre rail stations. Metrolink (tram) connects the city centre to many parts of Greater Manchester – lines run from the centre to Altrincham, Bury and Eccles. www.metrolink.co.uk Trains to Manchester First TransPennine Express offers reliable and comfortable rail travel throughout the North of England. www.tpexpress.co.uk
Industrial Powerhouse celebrates the rich industrial heritage of England’s Northwest. This guide highlights what Manchester has to offer but don’t forget the hundreds of other gems dotted across the region. Head to Lancashire and discover the region’s former textile industry. Helmshore Mills Textile Museum offers a chance to see working machinery and gain a sense of working conditions in the late 19th century. Preston’s Harris Museum & Art Gallery showcases the Industrial Revolutionaries this summer, an exhibition that spans 150 years of industrial history. Whilst there, see the ‘teetotal teapot’ (featured in the BBC’s A History of the World in 100 Objects), which tells the story of the Preston-born temperance movement. The Northwest’s industrial success was built upon its rivers, canals and waterways. The National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port is the best place to learn more and offers the chance to enjoy a boat trip through an industrial landscape. In Liverpool, the Merseyside Maritime Museum is home to internationally renowned collections that reflect the seafaring history of a city that was once the gateway to the rest of the world. Discover the fascinating history of one of the world’s most important industrial regions. www.industrialpowerhouse.co.uk