Great Northern Warehouse – Manchester

Posted on by modernmoocher

The Great Northern Warehouse is the former railway goods warehouse of the Great Northern Railway, it was granted Grade II* listed building status in 1974.

Refurbished into a leisure complex in 1999.

The building is at the junction of Deansgate and Peter Street.

Once upon time in 1807 it wasn’t there at all.

By 1824 it still wasn’t here, though the area had been further developed.

Construction began in1885.

The warehouse was built to be fireproof with a steel frame on a rectangular plan, 267 ft  long by 217 ft wide and five storeys high, with twenty seven windows on the east and west sides and seventeen windows on the north and south ends. All four sides have friezes lettered in white brick reading Great Northern Railway Company’s Goods Warehouse. It was built above the Manchester and Salford Junction Canal, and a dock was constructed beneath to allow goods to be transferred to and from canal barges via shafts and a complex system of haulage using hydraulic power.

The building could hold a total of one hundred and fifty goods wagons across two of its levels, with capacity for a further 500 in its sidings. Its construction effectively wiped out the district of Alport Town, which had included 300 houses, and – Over 800 men were employed on the site. Twenty five million bricks, 50,000 tons of concrete, 12,000 tons of mild steel and sixty five miles of rivets were used in its construction.

Wikipedia

So by 1900 it appeared on the map.

We have previously visited the low multi-level car park beneath the Odeon.

So having time on my hands on the way to somewhere else, I took a look around the rest of the complex.

Here it is from the air in 2006.

Photo: Sean Gallagher

Great Northern is perfectly positioned in the heart of the city centre as the ideal place to eat, drink, meet and play. You will find a cinema, boutique bowling, restaurants, bars, entertainment venues, shops and the biggest range of estate agents in the city centre, all alongside our public square.

Great Northern

I found a mesmerising series of corridors and doors, defunct lifts and a plethora of pin-pong players, along with several leak catching buckets.

What will you find?

In November 2022, Trilogy Real Estate and Hong Kong–based Peterson Group brought forward updated plans for a mixed-use redevelopment of the site.

The historic warehouse will be given a new lease of life as office space, looking over a tree filled Square. Alongside this, the 1990’s cinema and car park building will be repurposed to create 746 apartments and reimagined pedestrianised retail streets.

Image: SimpsonHaugh

Cambridge Street Car Park – Glasgow

Posted on by modernmoocher

On the corner off Cowcaddens Road and Cambridge Street sits Cambridge Street Car Park.

In March 2024 I was wandering around in search of nothing in particular when I found something particular, in car park form.

Parkopedia

It does have a spiral ramp access – so I took that route to the top deck.

Portland Walk Car Park – Barrow in Furness

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Slater St Barrow-in-Furness LA14 1RU

Westmorland and Furness Council said Portland Walk car park will close from the start of July.

In a statement the council revealed the rooftop car park will permanently close from July 1 following a review which found said it had ‘very low usage’.

The Mail

I turned a corner, then another corner and caught sight of a concrete car park ramp.

I thought, I think – therefore, I am going to walk up and down it.

Wythenshawe Town Centre Car Park

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Multi Storey Car Park Rowlandsway Manchester M22 5RG

I’ve lost count of the countless times I have visited countless car parks.

I do have a fondness for ramps – particularly helical ramps, one of my most memorable early modernist encounters, was with Lubetkin’s penguin pool.

The cast concrete taking on a truly sculptural dimension.

There is also the Proustian recollection of a collection of geometry lessons and Helix instruments.

It has all left a lasting impression and I have subsequently taken every opportunity to waddle penguin like up and down several concrete car park ramps.

Here’s the most recent.

Car Park – Eldon Square

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Eldon Square Percy Street Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RZ

Well here we are in Newcastle again exploring a car park – last time was the Manors.

We are a walkway and a walk away at Eldon Square – a great big drum of a spiral ramped cylinder.

So well worth a look – by walking the ramp with outside in, and inside out views.

St James Street Car Park – Nottingham

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 5 St James’s St Nottingham NG1 6EY

This is an appalling car park. 

Nottingham should be ashamed of it.

Very expensive, dirty and with rough sleepers lying on each stairs landing.

Felt very unsafe.

 Parkopedia

Located in the heart of Nottingham, our parking on St James Street puts you right in the historical centre of this ancient city. Get your picture taken with the legendary Robin Hood Statue, then take a tour of the Castle, Museum and Art Gallery before staying in the stylish boutique accommodation of St James Hotel. 

NCP

Under construction.

Lost underpass.

Archive photographs: Nottingham Post

An overwhelming three-part development by John P Osborne & Sons. Phase 1 has a multi-storey car park 1962 above shops; followed by the fifteen-storey Britannic Hotel 1966, elevations by James Roberts.

Elain Harwood

Eschewing the pedestrian entrance, I ascended the ramp – walk like a car!

Weaving between yellow pillars, taking care on the stairs.

Peering out of the hexagons.

Until finally, I reached the upper level.

Made it Ma, top of the world!

White Heat

I’m on the top of the world lookin’ down on creation
And the only explanation I can find
Is the love that I’ve found, ever since you’ve been around
Your love’s put me at the top of the world

Manors Car Park – Newcastle upon Tyne

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Brims and Co. Limited

Manors Car Park’s distinctive form derives from the constraints of the train line to east which collided with the new Central East Motorway A167 M which dips beneath, shaping the car park between these constraints. The curvature of the concrete decks sweeps uniformally across the site, interrupted only by the circulation ramp. The car park was the first multi-story car park in Newcastle and marked the beginnings of Wilfred Burns car-centric plans for the modernisation of the city through the Central East Motorway Plan – 1963.

Burns plan aimed to increase the economic growth of the city through greater convenience for an emerging car owning populace and even went as far as to incentivised cars travel by offering limited free parking in the city centre.

Manors car park connected and accompanied by an equally dramatic and elongated pedestrian footbridge from Manors Train Station – today Manors Metro, touching the car park for access before swooping under Swan House on Pilgrim Street Roundabout. The bridge takes what feels like the longest imaginable route over the motorway, allowing pedestrians to bypass Northumberland high street and take in the theatrics of the swooping concrete forms and motorway traffic.

Something Concrete +Modern

Newcastle Libraries

In the early 1960s, under the leadership of T Dan Smith and his chief planning officer Wilf Burns, Newcastle city council undertook a comprehensive re-planning of the city centre that, had it been carried out to its full extent, would have led to the construction of underground motorways and a series of raised pedestrian decks running along Northumberland Street in the main shopping zone. The plan was that the new city would encircle the historical core, which would be preserved; meanwhile vast swathes of Georgian housing to the east would be razed. There were also plans for high-rise towers in the centre, only one of which was built.

The Guardian

This tendency in town planning was due in part to the publication of H. Alker Tripp’s book of 1942.

Along with Traffic in Towns an influential report and popular book on urban and transport planning policy published 25 November 1963 for the UK Ministry of Transport by a team headed by the architect, civil engineer and planner Colin Buchanan. The report warned of the potential damage caused by the motor car, while offering ways to mitigate it. It gave planners a set of policy blueprints to deal with its effects on the urban environment, including traffic containment and segregation, which could be balanced against urban redevelopment, new corridor and distribution roads and precincts.

These policies shaped the development of the urban landscape in the UK and some other countries for two or three decades. Unusually for a technical policy report, it was so much in demand that Penguin abridged it and republished it as a book in 1964.

Wikipedia

In a one man war against the segregation of traffic and pedestrian I often walk car parks, ramps and all.

Stockport Asda, Piccadilly Manchester, Merseyway, Heaton Lane, Hull, Red Rock, Grimsby, and Margate.

As a non-driving militant pedestrian I assert my right to go wherever I wish to – within reason.

Okay let’s go.

Pedestrian In A Car Park – Piccadilly Manchester

Posted on by modernmoocher

Here we are again – in a spin, oh what a spin that I’m in.

Up and down the spiral ramp, the eternal allure of the unknown and forbidden, walking the way of the motor car.

I was in town on an overcast day, prior to a Covid jab appointment, what better way to relax and reflect on our current condition, here on this whirling sphere.

A transgressive trip to a twisted world of spiral delights.

Stockport, Hull and London have all been previously explored – here we are now going up the back of the Plaza.

The work of architects Covell-Matthews Partners, further details here at Mainstream Modern.

The car park ramp serviced the Piccadilly, now Mercure Piccadilly Hotel; one of the three main elements of Piccadilly Plaza, along with City Tower and the late lamented Bernard House.

In its day, synonymous with Manchester’s emergent manifestly modern image – scene of Albert Finney’s homecoming, in the film Charlie Bubbles.

And also used, in the then fabulously glamorous Dee Time – host Simon Dee descending the ramp in his ‘E Type’ Jaguar.

Legend has it, that the ramp was the location for an unlikely encounter between architect Louis Kahn and top pop combo The Commodores.

The reception drop off was at first floor level and was accessed from street level by a helical ramp. My father’s dilapidated Renault 4 van gave up just near the top. Extremely embarrassed, my father asked Kahn to move over to the driver’s seat and steer, whilst he attempted to push the van the rest of the way. As he began to push a people carrier pulled up behind and out stepped a group of men who began to help. Soon the van was outside the reception and my father and Kahn thanked the men.

The young female receptionist was very excited: ‘Do you know who just pushed your car up the ramp? The Commodores!’

The RIBA Journal

Hang on to your hats lets take a trip up the helix.

And down again.

NB The Modern Moocher neither advocates nor encourages the pedestrians’ invasion of the motor cars’ private spaces.

Let it be known throughout the land, that it is at heart, a very, very daft and dangerous thing to do.

Car Park Ramp – Stockport

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We recently took a look around Redrock, today we visit the next door neighbour – the car park ramp.

Replacing the old Debenham’s ramp.

Linking the old world of Merseyway with the shiny new NCP.

I don’t drive no car so I have to make do with the ecologically sound and ever so affordable means of pedestrian trespass, proceeding incautiously I recorded my journey into the unknown.

Returning safely to Basecamp I investigated further, circumnavigating the drainage area.

I have to admit that I am over fond of this small sacred space, a modern impenetrable temple of Brutalism. My ambition is to stage an art/music event within, just wait and see/hear if I don’t!