UMIST: Past, Present, and Future.

The once-proud University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) has been defunct for almost a decade, but its former sight near Piccadilly hasn’t left us just yet.

UMIST's Main Building (now Sackville Street Building) and the railway viaduct.

UMIST began in 1824 as The Mechanics’ Institute and was founded at the historic 103 Princess Street – the site on which both the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the Co-Operative Insurance Society (CIS) were also established. By the late nineteenth-century, the Mechanics’ Institute had out-grown its home on Princess Street and in 1902 moved to the enormous Main Building (now Sackville Street Building), bringing most of its schools together for the first time. The construction of the building’s extension began in 1936 but the process was continually beset following the Second World War; the extension was finally completed in 1957 just as the broader expansion of the university was getting underway.

The Zig-Zag Renold Building

After gaining its Royal Charter in 1955 (for the most part, degrees were still awarded by the Victoria University of Manchester), the Manchester College of Technology entered a period of accelerated and significant expansion. The buildings that emerged from this transformative period were most unlike the campus’ flagship Main Building; brutalism was in vogue, and a series of angular and concrete towers were erected south of the railway viaduct during the 1960s. The first to top-out was the playful Renold Building, with its ‘zigzag’ panelled exterior and external glass staircase. For lovers of modernism, Renold remains a classic; for many others, it's an out-dated eyesore. Having missed out on gaining listed status in 2008, the future of the Renold Building isn’t quite as secure as some would like it to be, but with its masses of lecture-theatre space and close proximity to Piccadilly Station, the building still serves an important purpose for the University of Manchester as a conference facility.

The completion of the Renold Building was closely followed by construction of the Barnes Wallis Building (1964), the Faraday Building (1967), and the legendary Maths and Social Sciences Building (1968). Each of the new constructions embodied the principles of the modernist movement – all are concrete, angular, functional, and imposing. It may be hard to imagine now, but the M&SS Building once stood as a proud and triumphant symbol of UMIST's spirit as a world-leading centre for scientific excellence. The modernist revolution south of the viaduct gave UMIST a campus to match its forward-thinking and ambitious ethos; as academics moved into their new soaring tower blocks, the international reputation of the university appreciated enormously – most who were there agree that the campus’ unique architectural collection played a role in creating UMIST’s exciting academic culture. 

Chandos from behind the Viaduct

Chandos Hall was another to be constructed in the early 1960s, and like the Renold Building, the fifteen-story Chandos tower incorporated an external glass staircase. Littered with rectangular windows, Chandos in many ways mirrored the exterior of the Barnes Wallis Building/Wright Robinson Hall which went up at the same time. Where Chandos was used exclusively for student accommodation, the Barnes Wallis Building became the centre of student-life at UMIST and went on to achieve nation-wide notoriety for its raucous students' association bar that hosted many of the biggest bands in the world during the '60s and '70s. 

But in 2004 the party was brought to a close. UMIST and the Victoria University of Manchester merged - though it was really more of an absorption of the former by the latter. Within three years of the merger it was announced by the new entity – The University of Manchester (UoM) – that many former UMIST buildings would be sold off, or even levelled. The university’s 2007 Estates Strategy states clearly that it is the aim of UoM to “relocate those schools at the north of the campus to land already owned by the University [on Oxford Road]”. In other words, the UMIST campus will be closed and sold-off, transforming UoM into a single-site university by 2018. 

The now-shabby M&SS Building

While expedient and understandable, the University’s plan has placed many of these important buildings in precarious situations. The once-glorious M&SS Building now exists in the eyes of most as a monstrosity in need of demolition. While it looks like its best days may be behind it, I can’t help but think that something could be done to restore and save this grand structure – as an aspirational ‘skyscraper city’ Manchester should be doing everything it can to preserve its current tall buildings; fresh cladding and an interior renovation could transform the M&SS Building into a centrally-located apartment block, positioned as a prime landmark in the south of the city. Such a transformation is, of course, unlikely, and it's possible that the M&SS Building could vanish from the skyline by the end of the decade.

The future of the truly-epic Sackville Street Building is really anyone’s guess. The University seems committed to finding a fitting use for the building but a number of covenants restrict it to educational use only. The disappointing reality is that it’s unlikely that an educational provider other than The University of Manchester could afford to occupy and maintain this enormous structure. That said, it’s possible that a number of schools could come together to take on this extraordinary building and transform it into a vibrant centre of learning for children of all ages. And it’s also possible that the covenants could be overridden or modified by the courts, but still, it’s difficult to think of a potential occupier for the site - though if we ever got serious about devolution in the north of England, Sackville Street would be the perfect place to house a Greater Manchester Assembly and its administrative offices (something to keep in mind, maybe?). 

 

The futures of the Faraday and Renold Buildings, however, look markedly more secure. The University recently invested £3.4 million into Renold and it seems that its role as a prime conference venue will ensure that it continues to remain part of the University’s estates portfolio. And the Faraday Building, once a world-leading centre for Chemical Engineering, looks set to be converted into student accommodation. It's crucial that Faraday survives in its present form; it's the most decorative of all the site's '60s buildings and stands as a mischievous challenge to UMIST's modernist orthodoxy.

The buildings that remain on the old UMIST sight are certainly not to everyone’s taste. In isolation, many seem archaic, ugly, and even offensive; but when taken together the tall white concrete blocks that stand south of the viaduct remain an important and striking architectural collection. If the set cannot be saved, it’s still comforting to know that at least a couple of these grand structures will likely survive. 

But admirers of Mancunian architecture should be worried about the fate of the Sackville Street Building. The structure is much too grand and imposing to sit empty in that part of Manchester  – an occupier(s) must be found, and found quickly. In fact, if I had one architectural wish it would be that we could move the building brick-by-brick to the University’s Oxford Road campus. But pipe-dreams aside, we must hope that a purpose is found for this magnificent old building; for me, it was Manchester’s greatest when it was built more than a century ago, and it will still be one of Manchester’s greatest a century from now. 

Six of the Best: University Buildings

      Cathedral of Learning, Pittsburgh.

Ground was broken on the neo-gothic Cathedral of Learning in 1926, just as American Art Deco design was in its confident and majestic prime. While the Cathedral would work well in downtown Chicago or Midtown Manhattan (it stands at 163m), it serves as a teaching and administrative centre on the University of Pittsburgh’s main campus. Though I’m chiefly interested in a building’s exterior, the Cathedral makes this list in part because of its twenty-nine ‘Nationality Rooms’. Each of these teaching spaces reflects a particular culture that contributed to Pittsburgh’s development as a city; what I really like about the Nationality Rooms is that while each one remains unique in isolation, together they stand as an extraordinarily novel collection that conveys an important philosophic message.

Sackville Street Building, Manchester.

Perhaps the most imposing academic building in the world, the University of Manchester’s Sackville Street Building was completed in 1902 and served as the “Main Building” for UMIST until Manchester’s two leading universities merged in 2004. The twelve-story Sackville Street Building is still used by the University of Manchester but its future remains uncertain. UoM’s desire to become a ‘single-site’ university has rendered Sackville surplus to requirements. The building's impending redundancy is a terrible shame; it's much more dramatic and memorable than the University of Manchester’s John Owens Building, and it remains one of Britain’s most impressive university buildings. That Sackville is Grade II listed means that the structure is safe – we just need to hope that it doesn’t become another London Road Fire Station.

University Hall, Providence, RI

As Brown University’s first and oldest building, University Hall was named a U.S National Historic Landmark in 1962. Built in 1770, it was originally named College Edifice, and the agreed upon plan for the building read as follows: “[t]hat the house be one hundred and fifty feet long and forty-six feet wide, with a projection of ten feet on each side, (ten by thirty), and that it be four stories high”. Despite serving as a central component of one of America’s most prestigious universities, the most exciting historical anecdote about University Hall is that it was used during the War of Independence as barracks for both French soldiers and members of General Washington’s revolutionary army. Sadly, the building’s current role is markedly less interesting: it is now used primarily to house administrative offices, including the that for the President of Brown University. While its contemporary role may be somewhat mundane, University Hall remains a subtle, delightful, and quintessentially-New England structure; for me, at least, it remains Brown’s stand-out building. 

 Kings College Chapel, Cambridge.

Internationally renowned and universally adored, Kings College Chapel is one of the world’s finest existing examples of Gothic architecture. By far the oldest building on this list, the Chapel was constructed between 1446-1515 during the Wars of the Roses. Like Brown’s University Hall, Kings College Chapel also has a militaristic chapter in its history; during the civil war it was used as a training ground by Oliver Cromwell’s troops. With an exterior height of 94m, the Chapel is a towering spectacle and the quality and extent of the Chapel’s fan vaulting – completed in just three years by master-mason John Wastell - is unparalleled. All in all, Kings College Chapel is not only one of the world’s finest university buildings, it is one of the most magnificent structures on the planet. 

The Rotunda, Charlottesville, VA.

Among aficionados of neo-classical architecture, Thomas Jefferson - former U.S. President and author of the Declaration of Independence – is first and foremost considered an architect. Inspired by Rome’s Pantheon, Jefferson wished to design a structure for the University of Virginia that would represent “the authority of nature and power of reason”. The Rotunda is particularly significant in that it embodies a key aspect of Jeffersonian philosophy: it was built in place of a chapel to symbolise Jefferson’s belief in the separation between church and education. Less imposing than some of the other buildings on this list, the Rotunda stands at just 24m, but the building itself is truly magnificent and has gone on to inspire the construction of many other Rotunda-like buildings across America. It seems that the Rotunda has garnered the adulation it deserves: it will always stand as the centrepiece of Charlottesville’s UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Main Building Moscow State University, Moscow.

Moscow’s Seven Sisters remain one of the world’s finest architectural collections, and the Main Building at Moscow State University is perhaps the most grandiose of the set (it was the inspiration behind the 1980 Moscow Olympics logo). Upon its completion the triumphant Main Building was Europe’s tallest (240m) and it still stands as the world’s tallest educational building. The grandeur of Moscow State’s centrepiece doesn’t stop there, however: it contains a 1500-seat auditorium, 19 conference rooms, 140 classrooms, 6000 student rooms, a student club, a library, numerous scientific laboratories, an agronomy museum, a swimming pool, and various gymnastic halls - this building is gargantuan. But despite its impressive specifications, the history of Main Building began in a depressing manner. Commissioned by Joseph Stalin in 1949, the structure was built by an army of gulag inmates and German POWs who worked under the supervision of the KGB. Despite using slave-labour, Moscow State cost 2.6 billion rubbles to build – a figure higher than that set aside for the reconstruction of the entire city of Stalingrad.

Next Week...Six of the Best: Government Buildings.