UnDoing: An Essay by Sally Stone and Laura Sanderson

Stone, Sally ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5406-139X and Sanderson, Laura ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4772-4973 (2019) UnDoing: An Essay by Sally Stone and Laura Sanderson. In: UnDoing. Manchester School of Architecture (MSA) Press. ISBN 978-0-9929673-6-9

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Abstract

Manchester has moved far from the image of a dark and gloomy, northern English city built upon hard work and dirt, synonymous with just three things: industry, football and music. The place was known for its warehouses, cotton mills, railway viaducts, and canals – as would be expected from the first modern, industrial conurbation, however the continually evolving city has been reinvented as a significant situation that embraces the new while recognising the importance of this architectural and environmental heritage. This mid ground is an architectural bricolage, where a series of existing built elements are collected and reworked, where everything is of importance and everything is relevant. It is a wondrous combination of new and old, of the worthy, modest, exciting, significant, unimportant, and the almost invisible. Manchester is a vigorous and vibrant environment that is continually adjusting itself to the gait of the evolving narrative of urban life.