All Change

Category: Theatre, Exhibitions, Art, Museums, Family, Photography, Heritage & Days Out, Plays.

Manchester handles change pretty well. From a moderate market town to the world’s first industrialised city, and from there to our current position as the post-industrial ‘original modern’ city, it’s all been taken pretty much our stride.

Urbis, Cathedral Gardens When the city centre underwent extensive changes following the 1996 bomb, Urbis, in the remodelled Cathedral Gardens, emerged as an eye-catching cultural landmark; seemingly designed to reflect the confidence of a resurgent city.

Now, less than 8 years after it opened, Urbis as we know it is closed, due to be reinvented as the National Football Museum from mid 2011.

Whilst Urbis has established itself as a landmark in the redeveloped city centre, its original remit, as a museum of urban living, failed to make a cultural impact to live up to its architectural punch. Many passers-by assumed it was another glass and chrome office building or high-end apartments; those who did make it inside and forked out the £6 entry fee found a museum exhibition of modern urban living that failed to match the excitement of the real urban environment that was changing every day outside its glass walls.

The team at Urbis rolled with the punches, took the feedback on the chin and set about creating a new exhibition centre dedicated to popular culture; a perfect fit for a city that’s always near the cutting edge of social and cultural change. In the last couple of years the museum really hit its stride with exhibitions covering subjects from Manga to UK Hip-Hop, from the impact urban art can have on political movements to a stand-out exhibition on the nationwide impact of Manchester-produced television. By this point free entry, fun family activities, a genuinely great shop and restaurant had added up to an attraction that more than justified its extravagant housing; an original, modern museum worthy of the city.

There’s little danger of a project as big and potentially popular as a National Football Museum inheriting the problem of anonymity and confusion over its role, even in a building as challenging as Urbis. And the NFM (which is relocating from its current home at Preston North End’s Deepdale ground) comes with a track record of delivering a surprising range of great exhibitions and events. But the next 12 months will surely be poorer for missing a major creative centre.

There are independent galleries around the city that will hope to inherit some of the creative work that may have filled Urbis’ 5 floors of exhibition space, but perhaps the successor to its place in the hearts of its many supporters will be the re-opened People’s History Museum.

The PHM’s story is almost opposite to that of Urbis. Growing from a small collection put together by the Trade Union, Labour and Co-operative in London in the 1960s, the museum has changed names and locations over 35 years. Since 1994 the museum has been housed at the historic Pump House on Bridge Street, and has been officially known as the People’s History Museum since 2001. Its re-opening in February this year has followed a 2 and-a-half year, multimillion pound redevelopment . A building steeped in history has found a new use; as a visitor attraction and learning centre it will be unique to Manchester.

In many ways, the history of The Pump House building has been directly opposite to that of Urbis. Originally this Edwardian hydraulic pumping station provided power for the city’s warehouses and even raised the curtain at the nearby Opera House. Now it has evolved with its surroundings, retaining character and individuality whilst becoming what the city has demanded of it.

All around the city this year we’ll be seeing famous old buildings adapting and thriving as venues for world-class arts events. It’s easy to forget that one of Manchester’s busiest attractions, MOSI, sits on the site of the world’s oldest surviving railway station. The museum is currently undergoing a £7million renovation, and promises to re-emerge this summer with bright, modern gallery spaces sitting alongside the historic warehouses across the site.

Across town the Whitworth Art Gallery has been fulfilling its original mission to provide “perpetual gratification to the people of Manchester & cultivate taste and knowledge of the Fine Arts” for over a century, and this year it too will be expanding with new gallery space and an entrance that will open the old building up to the light and air of the neighbouring park. Just along Oxford Road the Gallery of Costume at Platt Hall in Platt Fields Park has re-opened after 2 years and over £1million of investment.

Back in the city centre the Library Theatre Company is mid-way through its final season in the famous building that gives the company its name. Central Library is closing until 2013, with a view to both ensuring the survival of one of Manchester’s finest public buildings and becoming a world class facility, and from July the Library Theatre company will leave its distinctive basement theatre and go on tour to venues including The Lowry before finding a new, permanent home in the city. Get to see something in this unique auditorium while you can, and look forward to the potential redevelopment of the Theatre Royal on nearby Peter Street (currently in use as a nightclub) as a new home for one of the city's best theatre companies. It all adds up to a refreshing boost for Manchester’s ever-changing arts and attractions.

Of course there’s one more change; us. Go See This is another Manchester first that hopes to learn from and change with the demands of the city. We’ll provide you with a single place to get ideas, book tickets for and plan out all your days and nights out and about. In return we ask that you’ll provide us with all your suggestions and opinions on the best places to go and see in Manchester. Maybe one day soon you’ll see us as another local landmark.