Bridgewater Hall
Friday, 3rd February 2006 by James Turnbull
Manchester's Bridgewater Hall was designed by Arup in conjunction with the University of Salford. As a city centre concert venue it has been entirely mounted on springs to alleviate noise from the nearby tramline. Look to the north of the building for a small white dot which is a giant polished Marble monolith made by Kan Yasuda in his Italian workshop.
Thanks: Andy Gibb The Honey Monster
They do tours of the building and you can go into the basement. The building is completely unconnected to the the surrounding ground and has no foundations as such. At ground level you can actually see daylight between the ground and the exterior wall. The whole building is simply suspended on hundreds of huge springs – if it wasnt so clever it is almost cartoon like. I also had my graduation there – which was nice!
Just to the south – in between the canal and the railway and to the right of the road junction is The Hacienda nightclub. Its been demolished now but there it is in all its glory. I’m sure anyone who likes Joy Division/ New order/ Happy Mondays / Stone Roses. has seen the film 24hour party people or knows anything about acid house will know the Hacienda. For some us – between 1988 and 1992 – this was the centre of the known universe (and some of the unknown universe aswell!)