A SOCIETY dedicated to saving `ugly' buildings has been launched in Manchester.
Tower blocks, concrete landscapes and motorway flyovers will be celebrated by the Manchester Modernist Society.
More than 200 people have joined the society, which plans to hold its first meeting later this year.
Members say the CIS tower, the benefits office Albert Bridge House on Bridge Street, the former Department of Employment offices on Aytoun Street and the Daily Express building in Ancoats are all worthy of praise.
Founder member Maureen Ward, an artist and archaeologist, said: "We have embraced regeneration wholesale in this city often for good reasons but there is now one glass building too many.
"There are old buildings which might not strictly be beautiful but people feel a lot of affection for them.
"Many Victorian buildings are beautiful and deserve to be protected but there are later buildings which mean something to a generation - and there are not necessarily a lot of them left."
The Manchester Civic Society - an appreciation group for architecture - has been running for several decades and has backed campaigns to restore the Victoria Baths and Gorton Monastery.
But the new society says it will focus on saving 20th-century buildings, including the disused Odeon Cinema on Peter Street, the 15-storey Moberley Hall at the former Umist campus and the Holloway sculptural wall, also at Umist.
Among the members is Steve Millington, a geography lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, who ran a series of lectures and tours in praise of the Mancunian Way dual carriageway.
Steve said he was particularly interested in how people had reclaimed the space in the 1967 motorway's flyovers and underpasses.
He said: "Skateboarders have created a skatepark and in the past people have had parties in the underpasses and the roundabouts. It is very easy to dismiss it as a dead space but it isn't."
To mark its launch, the society will produce a series of postcards of buildings it considers hidden gems.
Its first meeting in November will feature screenings of documentaries from the North West Film Archive about the construction of the Mancunian Way and the creation of post-war housing in Hulme.
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Can we list the Beetham Tower.
Hey, that tower will be lovely when it's finished
What about the furniture store opposite the Apollo on Hyde Road Ardwick? Can that be sunk underground? It is an offence to the eyes.
Can Rio Ferdinand be included please
I thought this article was going to be about Tevez and Lescott.
That furniture store opposite the Apollo was knocked down years ago, mate.
Keep up, eh?
Not the one on Hyde Road as I said, Levenshulme Blue.
The ugliest buildings in Manchester are, in my opinion:
1, The PC World on Ashton Old Road where Great Ancoats Street crosses it
2, THe Civil Justice Centre
3, The Beetham Tower
If only this society had been founded sooner, it might have been able to save the Maths Tower at the university.
I notice that most of the 20th century buildings the quote as being worthy of listing are from the 60s and earlier. And as for one too many glass buildings, well the worthy Daily Express building is the ultimate glass building.
The worst building is Albert Bridge House an absolut eyesore
Donner
The whole of Piccadilly gardens especially the Berlin wall.
Mr Angry, Bury
Youve got it in three,Those really are the worse buildings ive ever seen whoever thought that the PC world building was great or whoever designed it needs banning from designing anything else.
Mr Angry
Not one for modern design then, I would propose most of the UMIST (as was) campus, especially the SU and Wright Robinson Hall
Oh sorry, when I saw the title 'celebrating Manchesters Ugly Jems' I thought they were refering to Wayne Rooney and Gary Neville !!!
Ugly buildings? Old Trafford!!!!!
Beetham Tower? Why this has been mentioned I don't know. This city is built on diversity. All buildings here have their own identity and history, no matter how old or new, all play their part in making Manchester what it is.
I nominate the tower blocks of flats on Victoria Ave East,they must rank has the U.Ks best effort in replicating the sort of 1950s buildings that were absolutely typical of Eastern Europe when it was under the domination of the Russians
How about every modern apartment building in town. All try to look so individual that they start to all look the same. Steel and glass and a few sticky out balconies in random formation. WOW!
The express building is the original glass building, built years ago, yet looks better than most of the modern ones, with a few exceptions.
I think glass buildings wouldn't look so bad, where it not for being built in the greyest part of the UK (who wants to see the grey sky/drizzle clouds reflecting from the windows back down onto the pedestrians below?) and the fact that most of these glass monstrosities haven't had their many windows cleaned in many months.
Whoever builds these ugly things should do their research. We need something that will lift the city out of the grey concrete/grey sky combo. Manchester just looks depressing with all the black, grey, and white everywhere.
In fact, if I was unlucky enough to be born in one of Greater Manchesters "satelite" towns, I would have a long list of eyesores. To look at what Bury, Stockport and Oldham offer for example, horrible buildings are a plenty.
That thing in piccadilly Gardens that blocks the view of the Portland and Britania hotels
How about the town hall and Aytoun Street needs to reopen and built higher. i am sure this labout government can fill it.
the big council house at eastlands!
Didn't they film a classic Cracker scene on the CIS?
Too late for FAC51 :(