Jonathan Schofield Manchester Tours
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  • EXCLUSIVE TOUR: New Century Tour, perfection in design from 1963
  • FREE Castlefield - the 2,000 year guestlist
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  • FREE Scientists, sinners and graveyards: A Tale of Two Citie
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  • EXCLUSIVE: 'Boldest Building' Tour, Edgar Wood Centre
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  • Truly Madly Brutal
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  • EXCLUSIVE: Chetham's Library and College House
  • First Wednesday Spinningfields Series 2020
  • Exclusive: 35 King St & Georgian Manchester
  • Secrets of the University of Manchester with interior visits
  • Totally Manchester - a general tour of the city
  • Architecture & Planning: why does Manchester look like it does?
  • Bombed & Besieged: Manchester at War
  • Some Published Articles On Manchester's Present, its Heritage and Tourism
  • Secrets of the Northern Quarter
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  • The Surprising Manchester Series: Old Trafford
  • The Surprising Manchester Series: Bradford & Clayton
  • EXCLUSIVE: Kampus tours, the abandoned warehouses
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  • Shock, Surprise, Prose & Verse: Manchester and Literature
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  • Return to 1421: The Old Towne and Medieval Manchester
  • Suggested Private Tours
  • Anthony Burgess and Literary Manchester Tour
  • Great Northern Tunnel Tour
  • 1840s Manchester: The Key Decade, talk and tour
  • Burns Night Tour Monday 25 January
  • Fire Station Tours: Calling Photographers & Sketchers
  • Manchester City of Art Tour
  • Valentine's Day tour 14 February
  • The Gallery
  • The Ghosts of Afflecks & the Northern Quarter
  • New Manchester Squares Tour
  • The Manchester Guardian is 200 tour
  • The Understanding Architecture Series
  • FREE The Hidden Rivers Tour

Totally Madly Brutal - Concrete dreams in twentieth century Manchester

​ 10.30am Saturday 17 June 2023
£15

A TOUR revealing how Manchester was re-imagined after World War II.

This is all about optimism and reality at a fascinating time for design. 
Broken as a superpower Britain found it hard to face its past. A dirty, bombed, Manchester, being the first urban centre of the Industrial Revolution, didn't like what it saw when it glanced in the mirror. It seemed better to wipe all the old stuff away. Make a fresh start.

So the city came up with the superb in scale and ambition 1945 Manchester Plan. The vision in this huge document is thrilling but thankfully it was never realised. If
 carried through the city would have been left with a Stalinist city centre like Nova Huta close to Cracow. The reality, apart from one or two ideas, would have been horrific. Instead of the glorious mess of Manchester architecture we would have been left with a regimented and uniform street scene. The Plan even carried an illustration (see below) that did away with famous Manchester Town Hall. It was out-of-date see. Old-fashioned.

Yet there are tell tale signs of how the plan would have been realised and there are buildings which hint at how the city might have looked if it all had been carried through. 

But it's not just the Manchester Plan we look at but also the some of the mighty buildings we have remaining from the controversial post-war love of concrete, glass and steel with the CIS Tower, the Piccadilly Plaza complex, Manchester's little Brasilia plus precursors such as the glorious Daily Express building.  

The tour will include site visits inside and outside buildings. It will look at buildings and huge and often overlooked artworks (such as William Mitchell's wonders, illustrated below) and describe the personalities involved with the Manchester Plan. This is an informed tour but it is huge fun too, great for academics, modernists and those just interested in Manchester architecture alike. 
​
For the walking tour meet outside New Century House, Corporation Street/Miller Street junction, M60 0AL, ten minutes before the start time of 2pm. The ticket price is £15 and can be bought through Paypal below. If you prefer to make a bank transfer then please email me on event@jonathanschofieldtours.com


Truly Madly Brutal
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