I went on the Urbed bus tour organised by Emily Crompton who did a talk the other day. Urbed specialise in urban design and sustainability.
It was a brilliant 3 hour tour on a lovely old London Bus, with a running commentary from the bus driver who also works for Urbed and knows Manchester like the back of his hand, and of course the very lively Emily, who obviously loves her new job.
Our transport
Whilst waiting to go, I noticed the detail above the Holden gallery doorway, its beautiful.
You will have to excuse the quality of these pictures as they are taken through a grubby window of a moving bus.
This is Moss Side where there is a lot of house regeneration, the old houses have been flattened, and replaced with new, all except this one on the right, where the owner has refused to move.
At the end of each row of terraced houses, are these white ultra modern buildings, I'm not convinced.
A grand old building in need of a bit of TLC
"Skyhook" by Brian Fell
This sculpture is quite fascinating self supporting representing the past industrial area of Salford Quays area
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| The imperial War Museum - apparently the building is supposed to represent a broken cup and saucer!!? |
The bridge linking the new "Media City",
everything feels ultra modern and squeaky clean
BBC offices
Buildings in Media City, Its nice to see a bit of thought has gone into the design process, the one below could almost be mistaken for Lego.
One of the many old bridges
I love this old building, it has so much potential, it appears to be one of the old cotten mills, which will probably turn into new apartments eventually, this seems to be the way for most of these buildings, I love the blue against the brickwork.
New Next to old, and the waterway system which bought much wealth to Manchester in the cotton industry.
I find it interesting the new next to old, there is a lot of it in Manchester. The starkness of the modern buildings almost offsets the lovely architecture and character of the older building.
This is is a Premier Inn an ugly building, but kind of interesting "pod like" windows
Another large glass house- looks fragile
One of the shop windows in the Northern Quarter
I apologise for going a bit crazy on the photos, I just get a bit excited!
The trip was a great experience and opportunity to get some inspiration for Unit X, and to view it from the upper deck of the bus was a bonus. I know that I'm feeling the pull from the detail of the historic parts of the city.
These images are really beautiful. You have taken the shots from such unusual angles. It is hard to believe these buildings are in Manchester. I liked the war museum building because I thought it was designed to reflect distruction and shattered lives. A teacup!? I have gone off it now. I love the old buildings with greenery growing on them, kate was right, lots of buildings used to look like that, I had forgotten them.
ReplyDeletePip after all your busy touring around the city I think you have captured some old and new wonderful features of the city well in your photographs. I am very impressed. It is crazy walking down a city street, the same place you go to five days a week and stopping to take the time to look what is around you. I enjoyed doing this at the start of the project, and now I have an idea of what I am doing I can now focus on what I'm trying to photograph from the city.
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