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Beetham architect wants more skyscrapers
December 01, 2006
Ian Simpson on the Beetham Tower
Ian Simpson on the Beetham Tower
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Tao! Think you have a rat under your bonnet mate! The article wasn't talking about building blocks of flats! Its about having a nice new city to live in! If you live in the country side then to be honest; i dont think this story has anything to do with you! Another thing i find annoying is the stereotyping people who live in blocks of flats! This is the problem with the world today, people thinking their better than the next person. You go to a church with these views and people will tell you how infected with the "I Hate The Youth And New Generation Desiese". I Rest My Case
we are running outof space so logical way is up. manchester will look good with a skyline though can't wait if they do it
Skyscrapers are the way forward for us. They provide compelling centre pieces for areas. They draw in people and investment into spaces that would otherwise be neglacted. They will expand the centre raise the cities profile. Of course you can't thow any old building up but I've seen the Inacity development plans and it will be even more beneficial to the city than the Beetham tower/Hilton. The little used east exit from Piccadilly station will be opened up and the development will draw people to Piccadilly Basin, the Northern Qaurter and start plugging the gap between Piccadilly and Great Ancoats street. The piccadilly area is primed and ideal for skyscrapers. Lets just get some of our older buildings ship shape too - i.e. the Fire Station.
Yes we should embrace the skyscraper & "good" new architecture - but I do wish Manchester would stop allowing "get-rich-quick" developers from knocking down Victorian churches, pubs, warehouses, green spaces and homes. YES, IT'S STILL GOING ON!
The Modernisation of Manchester has ripped the heart out of Manchester. We don't need lots of high rise blocks all over the place. The Arndale killed Victorian Manchester, and Architects and city planners are trying to do the same with the rest of the city centre. City Planners even allowed the rest of the ancient street of cannon Street to disappear.
We need our heritage - tower blocks can be built elsewhere but not more in the city centre please.
We need our heritage - tower blocks can be built elsewhere but not more in the city centre please.
"But Mr Simpson hit out at critics who, he said, were too concerned about maintaining the city's Victorian appearance at the expense of distinctive architecture" Just because it is tall does not make it distinctive Mr Simpson. The Gherkin yes, Petronas towers, yes. Rectangular boxes no! Cheap and unimaginative, not distinctive. I'm all for new, striking and even tall buildings in modern designs but not rectangular featurelss slabs. Look at any website such as www.skyscraperpage.com for proposed skyscrappers around the world, not a featureless rectangle among them. Manchester deserves better!
ah yes the only way is up ? now im sure ive heard this before?? and ive heard a thing called good architecture? firstly i wonder what happened to all our high rise flats from the 1960s?? and i wonder what happened to good design ect? didnt we pull most of this good design down because it looked terrible??the arndale ect? some peoplec wouldnt know good architecture if it jumped up and bit them on their bum? Why do you think that good victorian design has outlasted the 1960s designs?? Because new designs are buit to be obsolete within a few years ?? and why do you think the people who desigjn places like the bethan towers and the piccadilly plaza Ect "Because it keeps a few well paid designers in work" Why do you think places li8ke our old victorian mills lend themselves so readily to modernisation ""Brilliant design and good materials that will stand the test of time"" just look at how much is left of ""Great Design of the 1960s"" not much ??these people are a joke who think that we want to emulate america and live in a upright city with no soul or feeling??
Manchester's Victoriana is what defines the city. Manchester is one of the world's greatest Victorian cities and should be proud of this, instead of too often seeing its past as being in conflict with its future. Although impractical, locally listing almost every pre WW2 building in the city would gain my support. There's plenty of poor modern office blocks that can be demolished to make way for new skyscrapers, though perhaps not one as big as Mr Simpson's ego.
Indeed Mr Simpson, but then I don't wish to see one of my favouritest UK cities turning into another Singapore - where massive glass monstrosities barely disguised as "21st century office" skyscrapers are erected overnight. On same exact spots where old heritage buildings were demolished in the name of progress. Surely today's architects could put in some effort by modernising Victorian buildings, for instance altering the internal structure?
Lets keep manchester like manchester "A city museum" the world first railway station the worlds first city built for world trade the world fist industrialised city ?We are loosing "our" history as a great city and the world leader of everything in the modern world? why throw away all our history that we cannot get back once destroyed by these lunatics who want to live in a glass/comcrete city with nothing to offer people only the next great building ?that is until that building goes out of fashion then you are on the great conveyerbelt of building design??like our mobile phone we are conned into buying yet the latest model or the latest colour???? where will it end if its left up to these jumped up designers
Do turkeys vote for Christmas? Of course Mr Simpson is going to put forward the idea that more skyscrapers should go up in Manchester. And I'm sure he'll be more than happy to design boring, box shaped buildings and get paid handsomly for it. Shambles square is a great example of how Victorian and modern buildings can sit and complement each other. But size isn't everything.
I agree wholeheartedly with Ian Simpson in principal, although I'd have to question his own recent designs, many of which seem to be merely variations on a theme. The 44-storey apartment building he has designed for the site of the old Job Centre near Piccadilly station looks so similar to the Beetham Tower it's uncanny (although minus the interesting bits). So while I agree that Manchester could do with more tall buildings (and completely refute any suggested similarities between this type of tall building and 1960s thrown-together council flats), please let one or two of them be genuinely innovative, iconic designs.
Dennis of Eccles,
the interesting bits? Would that be the rectangleness of the Beetham Tower or featureless ness of it? I am looking at rows of filling cabinets, each of which has precisely the same number of interesting bits!
the interesting bits? Would that be the rectangleness of the Beetham Tower or featureless ness of it? I am looking at rows of filling cabinets, each of which has precisely the same number of interesting bits!
Dennis, Eccles i can name quite a few ugly tall buildings from the 1960/70s like the piccadilly hotel it lacks any features or colour "mind you if you class grey concrete as a colour"? and most of these so called large buildings always seem so empty and lifeless devoid of any feeling depth of colour just like the people who design these blocks of concrete ? You only have to look at the "piccadilly garden site" to see where we are heading "lifeless and grey" just like the peoples imaginations who design these places. Surely as human beings we need to feel something warmer than concrete and glass structures around us??
i agree with prince charles what a mess i hate the tall buildings give a child a pencel and paper and this is what they will come up with no idea what so ever. manchester is a real mess with piccadilly deansgate and they had a chance to show the world how it should be done and cocked it up
Send him to London or Bangkock
As a very proud Mancunian with the utmost respect and reverence for it's Victorian Heritage I have also been lucky enough to live and work as an architect in Chicago. There are several similarities with Chicago being a "Victorian" city built on largely industrial and transportation based industries. The difference is that Chicago has embraced every chance to reinvent itself over the past century and to encourage architetural excellence as a means to achieving this. They have also made some mistakes and have several mediocre high-rises to prove it. The difference is that Chicago has continuued to be a modern, changing, vibrant and truely international city which takes great pride in all areas of its heritage while Manchester desparately clings to its Victorian past at the cost of becoming an innovative center which encourages the free expression of it's many talented architects and desiogners. We definitely stumbled and failed in the 60s and 70s but, rather than learning from these mistakes, we crawled back in to our conservationist shells and have put the city on hold to the point where it struggles to stand shoulder to shoulder with the worlds great cities. Manchester IS one of the worlds great cities and needs to stand up and be counted again. With sensitive city-wide planning there is no reason why high rise architecture cannot embelish the city, compliment its heritage and take the city forward to become a truly great city. The Commonwealth games served as a great reminder of what we are capable of and, with the recent trends of population movement back to city centers we should be able to put Manchester back on the map as one of the greatest cities in the world to live, work and play.
Has everyone forgot about 9/11 , the plane crash into the stockport flats?
What about fires,do you know how long it takes to walk down hundreds of stairs when you cant use the lifts, If there was a fire on the top floor I doubt the fire bridgade would have a long enough ladder!
Health and safety concerns have gone amiss here!
What about fires,do you know how long it takes to walk down hundreds of stairs when you cant use the lifts, If there was a fire on the top floor I doubt the fire bridgade would have a long enough ladder!
Health and safety concerns have gone amiss here!
I was in the city centre recently and had a good look at the Beetham Tower. I believe it looks hideously out of place in Manchester's fine Victorian setting and should never have been allowed at all. Well, that's my view on the matter. Everybody's tastes differ on all kinds of things in this crazy world of ours.
oooh lets all be safe and keep it all the same. we don't like change us do we?? Personally I'm all for new and exciting architecture, it doesn't have to be a million storeys high and be glass and concrete, I just hope Mr Simpson, and all the Philistines that have previously commented, realise this.
My main issue with this article is there seems to be a deliberate blur between "distinctive architechture" and "skyscrapers".
There can be hideous skyscrapers and there can be skyscrapers that are distinctive works of architechture. To state the obvious, there can be distinctive architecture without being tall with many stories. To use the Beetham Tower as an example, I can appreciate the enormous challenge that was met in building it. That does not mean the huge, square, all-glass and completely featureless tower is distinctive architecture. I'm sorry - it isn't. To be distinctive, architecture needs some appreciable unique features.
Simpson seems to be arguing that the only way to achieve modern distinctive architecture is in the form of skyscrapers. Why? The only justification behind this is that property developers are more motivated to invest if they can create more units on a given area of land.
Is that a good reason to embark on a fundamental redesign of the city's appearance as Simpson is arguing?
There can be hideous skyscrapers and there can be skyscrapers that are distinctive works of architechture. To state the obvious, there can be distinctive architecture without being tall with many stories. To use the Beetham Tower as an example, I can appreciate the enormous challenge that was met in building it. That does not mean the huge, square, all-glass and completely featureless tower is distinctive architecture. I'm sorry - it isn't. To be distinctive, architecture needs some appreciable unique features.
Simpson seems to be arguing that the only way to achieve modern distinctive architecture is in the form of skyscrapers. Why? The only justification behind this is that property developers are more motivated to invest if they can create more units on a given area of land.
Is that a good reason to embark on a fundamental redesign of the city's appearance as Simpson is arguing?
Unfortunately few people posting on here appear to understand much about construction. In Manchester recent plots of land have been sold for prices per sq mtr approaching that in Hong Kong which along with spiralling material/labour cost leave little in the budget for decorative facades and the need to maximise the floorplate area by building vertically. Yes we all love the Victorian architecture of Manchester but that was built at a time when labour, material and lives were cheap, interesting these are the same reasons for the fantastic buildings being erected in Dubai & China right now. Of course we would love to see buildings of the style of 30 St Marys Axe (Gherkin) or Chrysler building NY, but they were built for some of the richest companies on the planet and not as mid spec flats or hotel rooms.
So yes as the demand for City Living and Working increases we are likely to see more high rises clad in glass, steel or faux wood panelling as available budget and functionality will always be the overriding factors of the building going ahead. Surely you understand that if Mr Simpson had the budget for buildings to be clad in stainless steel, granite and marble then he would be using them.
So yes as the demand for City Living and Working increases we are likely to see more high rises clad in glass, steel or faux wood panelling as available budget and functionality will always be the overriding factors of the building going ahead. Surely you understand that if Mr Simpson had the budget for buildings to be clad in stainless steel, granite and marble then he would be using them.
Sorry but I chose to live in Manchester, not Manhattan, Chicago, Singapore or Shanghai! All of which have their own problems. Modern architecture can be great, but cities don't need skyscrapers to put themselves on the map, don't remember that many in Barcelona or even Berlin or Amsterdam. Perhaps Mr. Simpson can afford to live at the top of Beetham tower (most of us can't) or perhaps he chooses to live in leafy Cheshire - I wonder....
WISE OWL! You have a daft way at looking at life! Whats all this about a plane crashing into the "STOCKPORT FLATS" Whats a load of cobblers! Never happend! Now try and be a bit more positive.
A Tao, Manchester (01/12/2006 at 11:08)
On the other hand, keep all the rats in one place, stack em up to stop spreading out into the coutry side.