modernism – Page 30 – Modern Mooch

Huddersfield – University née Polytechnic

Posted on April 13, 2015November 17, 2021 by modernmoocher

Spanning the Huddersfield canal and set on a hillside site of a hilly Yorkshire town, the University Buildings dominate the Colne Valley area to the south.

Typically their history spans an earlier site which evolves during the 50s and 60s, as part of the drive to develop the industrial/educational base of the area and the burgeoning growth of the provincial Polytechnics.

The result is a confident yet dizzying panoply of styles and materials on a fairly compressed but expanding site.

Brick, concrete, glass and more recent modern clad additions collide in a bun fight of assertive volumes.

It all seems very exciting.

“David Wyles, The Buildings of Huddersfield: four architectural walks – facing us now is the impressive bulk of the Central Services Building in front of which stood a six-storey building; its structure emphasised by the reinforced concrete frame which projected skeleton-like above the main roof level. This was part of the earlier Technical College development which included several buildings of similar style designed from 1957 onwards by Frederick Gibberd. The six-storey blocks have since been demolished.

The focal point of the campus, the Central Services Building, was designed by Hugh Wilson and Lewis Womersley of Manchester and constructed between 1973 and 1977 at a total cost of £3,651,000. The building contains the main non-teaching facilities.

Much of the layout derives its form from the hillside site and this is accentuated by the undercover concourse leading through to the canal, which gives access to all parts of the building. The construction is based on a grid of reinforced concrete with floors supported on circular columns. The building is clad in light buff coloured bricks intended to harmonise with local sandstone.”

https://www.hud.ac.uk/about/the-university/history-of-huddersfield/

Congleton – Trinity Methodist Church

Posted on April 10, 2015October 9, 2020 by modernmoocher

How incongruous, to find a little of the space age in a suburban provincial Cheshire street, keeping company with solid, stolid brick built homes and sensible Victorian stone structures.

Trinity is dominated by its diamond shaped stained glass, framed in unfinished concrete, emboldened like a wide ecstatic grin, extending beyond the bounds of the street, beaming towards heaven.

To the side are concrete columns pierced by irregular rectangular windows.

Completed in 1968, architect was Gorden Ball from VWB Architects.

This tiny gem deserves your attention – take yourself off to Mill Street pronto.

Huddersfield – Queensgate Market

Posted on March 25, 2015September 12, 2016 by modernmoocher

One can only marvel at the ingenuity and vision that brings together modern architecture, technology and municipal functionality. It has produced an indoor market place of lasting and everlasting beauty and wonder.

Vaulted concrete roof columns and high side lighting from the pierced window strips between the split level roofing lead the eye up towards eternity.

The exterior and interior walls are both adorned by some of the finest mid-century public art.

A lasting provincial splendour that offers more with each visit – it’s irresistible.

Inside and outside.

Get y’self along there pronto!

http://www.c20society.org.uk/botm/queensgate-market-huddersfield/

Stockport – Postal Sorting Office

Posted on March 23, 2015January 9, 2017 by modernmoocher

What happens to functionalist architecture when it ceases to function?

It ceases to function.

Standing on the A6 in the centre of the town, once home to a warren of postal workers, sorting mail in preparation for the two delivery a day walks. This was a communications hub before they even thought of communications hubs.

The office stands empty, inside the paint slowly peels.

Following changes in working practices the posties now sort their own round, for a single daily delivery. The process has become mechanised, requiring new technologies and an appropriate anonymous architecture, on the edge of town.

The building however, continues to reflect a 70s optimism, monumental – fading, as optimism is apt to do.

An exciting composition of curved tiled volumes and boxy glass and steel modernism, in a delightfully battered brown and cream. Now in the ownership of the Greater Manchester Pension fund, its future would seem, to say the least, uncertain. This whole Grand Central site clustered around the railway station has been subject to a series of speculative leisure developments. As in other locations they seem to fade, just as quickly as the boarded hoardings, shrouded in designers’ digital piazza visualisations.

So we stand and stare at each other lovingly, our heads in a cloud of municipal stasis.

Inside nothing moves.