King Street, Manchester...

I like the mixtures of architectural styles in Manchester and the combination of the old and the new. The Victorians designed the city to make money. There were no great planned squares or tree lined boulevards. Every spare inch was given over to making money. By the time the realised what they had created it was too late and the beautiful Victorian buildings that were put up are cramped and hemmed in. The spaces we have today had to be carved out of the Victorian city as and when was possible. It does, however, give the city a certain character and people turn a corner and are suddenly confronted by something stunning. I remember two American friends being stopped in their tracks by suddenly coming on the Town Hall, a building that in any other city would have been at the end of some wide tree lined boulevard.

Here we have King Street dominated by City Tower on Piccadilly Gardens. On the right the grand commercial buildings line King Street though their role as home to the big banks in the city has been usurped by the glass towers of Spinningfields and they have found new roles as restaurants, proposed hotels, and retail units...