Manchester: Shaping the City

Royal Institute of British Architects & Manchester City Council

November 2004
Code: 36181
ISBN: 1 85946 157 3
978 1 85946 157 0
256 pp
Hardback
£19.95

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The Manchester story is a great one to tell. It is a story of adventure and innovation, and of a fierce independent spirit. It is a story of power, of confident and imaginative local leadership, to change perceptions, and hence reality. I now find a real local pride in what has been achieved, and a greater understanding of how the power of good architecture, and planning, changes lives for the better.
George Ferguson - President, Royal Institute of British Architects.

Manchester, a radical, gritty northern metropolis initiated a new way of working in the 18th century, creating extraordinary wealth for the whole nation, defining a new way of living with suburbs for the middle classes, and inner city terraces for the working classes. In the 21st century, Manchester is undergoing a remarkable renaissance, transforming itself through an investment in physical infrastructure, prestige projects and quality architecture. Manchester creates one third of the Northwest region’s wealth and is determined to become a leading European city, with a wide range of imaginative strategies in place to achieve this aim.

Manchester: Shaping the City demonstrates the constant spirit and originality of Manchester’s people and the physical, social and economic improvements, which continue to drive the city forward. It includes a timeline of critical regeneration activity and events over the last twenty years using case studies such as No 1 Springfields, Urbis, No 1 Deansgate and Beetham Tower, to name but a few, to illustrate the processes involved in this major physical regeneration of the city, and the contribution of these processes to future projects. The book is just the beginning of the next chapter in Manchester’s history. A city that has proved it has the ambition, confidence, and determination to keep its place amongst the key regional cities in Europe.