National Football Museum (Urbis), Manchester - September 2013
Visited with Agour, Lauren, Millhouse, Morse and Sho
I'd come over to Manchester to meet up with Sho, who was back in the city for a few days... turns out a few other heads were about too. After a few cheap drinks at Sinclair's Oyster Bar, a few of us decided we would walk round the corner and finally get round to topping Urbis. Anon, Gone, Leaf, Millhouse and Suboffender had managed it two nights prior to this trip - so we followed suit and got in on the action with Millhouse as our guide. I'd asked Userscott about it a couple of years ago, as to my knowledge, he and a handful of others alongside him were the first and only other group to have been able to sit beneath the copper finial at the pinnacle. Userscott's suggestion was to 'borrow' a ladder nearby.
Things have changed a bit around the base of the building recently, making the task much more viable than running through Cathedral Gardens with a stolen ladder. It's not the best rooftop by a long shot, but given it's iconic form, it's certainly unique... and one I think we'd all wanted for quite some time.
As seen from the Renaissance Hotel, Deansgate...
History
This is Manchester's £30m millennium project and the culmination of the city centre's phoenix-like rebirth after the devastation of the IRA bomb in 1996. Urbis, the word itself, means "of the city". Billed as a new kind of museum that tells the story of cities through the experiences of its inhabitants. As the architect Ian Simpson explained: "The building is itself part of the city experience it exhibits."
The glazed external walls are made up of narrow, alternating horizontal strips of clear and translucent sand-blasted glass. They offer views in and out of the building, conceptually underlining the connection between the museum's theme and the surrounding city. Its roof sweeps down like a ski-jump and is finished in a green, pre-patinated copper.
Building work started in 1998. Taking four years to complete, the building opened in 2002 as a museum and exhibition centre - focusing on temporary exhibits relating to city life and urban culture. The museum never really met expectations regarding visitor figures in the early years, mainly due to the high admission prices. After a couple of years the admission prices were scrapped and the choice was made to focus more on Mancunian history. Things did improve drastically for Urbis after this move, eventually improving visitor figures fivefold!
By 2009 however, plans emerged to relocate the National Football Museum here from it's former (and more appropriate) home in Preston. This move was completed in 2010.
thanks,
tweek
Visited with Agour, Lauren, Millhouse, Morse and Sho
I'd come over to Manchester to meet up with Sho, who was back in the city for a few days... turns out a few other heads were about too. After a few cheap drinks at Sinclair's Oyster Bar, a few of us decided we would walk round the corner and finally get round to topping Urbis. Anon, Gone, Leaf, Millhouse and Suboffender had managed it two nights prior to this trip - so we followed suit and got in on the action with Millhouse as our guide. I'd asked Userscott about it a couple of years ago, as to my knowledge, he and a handful of others alongside him were the first and only other group to have been able to sit beneath the copper finial at the pinnacle. Userscott's suggestion was to 'borrow' a ladder nearby.
Things have changed a bit around the base of the building recently, making the task much more viable than running through Cathedral Gardens with a stolen ladder. It's not the best rooftop by a long shot, but given it's iconic form, it's certainly unique... and one I think we'd all wanted for quite some time.
As seen from the Renaissance Hotel, Deansgate...
History
This is Manchester's £30m millennium project and the culmination of the city centre's phoenix-like rebirth after the devastation of the IRA bomb in 1996. Urbis, the word itself, means "of the city". Billed as a new kind of museum that tells the story of cities through the experiences of its inhabitants. As the architect Ian Simpson explained: "The building is itself part of the city experience it exhibits."
The glazed external walls are made up of narrow, alternating horizontal strips of clear and translucent sand-blasted glass. They offer views in and out of the building, conceptually underlining the connection between the museum's theme and the surrounding city. Its roof sweeps down like a ski-jump and is finished in a green, pre-patinated copper.
Building work started in 1998. Taking four years to complete, the building opened in 2002 as a museum and exhibition centre - focusing on temporary exhibits relating to city life and urban culture. The museum never really met expectations regarding visitor figures in the early years, mainly due to the high admission prices. After a couple of years the admission prices were scrapped and the choice was made to focus more on Mancunian history. Things did improve drastically for Urbis after this move, eventually improving visitor figures fivefold!
By 2009 however, plans emerged to relocate the National Football Museum here from it's former (and more appropriate) home in Preston. This move was completed in 2010.
thanks,
tweek
