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Manchester
Sapling's City Gateways bring together all our content relating to specific cities in the UK and Ireland. This Gateway features links to web sites that are relevant to Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire, as well as details of local books, events and news.
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Sapling Bookstore (4)
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The Anxious City
Richard J. Williams
(2004)
Paperback - 296 pages
Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis Books Ltd
ISBN: 0415279275
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
In the western world, cities have, arguably, never been more anxious: realistic anxieties about personal safety, and metaphorical anxieties about the uncertain place of the city in culture are the small change of journalism and political debate. Cities have long been regarded as problems, in need of drastic solutions. In this context, the contemporary revival of city centres is remarkable. But in a culture that largely fears the urban, how can the contemporary city be imagined? How is it supposed to be used or inhabited? What should it look like? What should be its purpose? Which existing forms of urban life might serve as models for a new city? Taking England since WW2 as its principal focus, this provocative and original book considers the western city at a critical moment in its history. Historically among the most urbanised of countries, England is an extraordinary urban laboratory. The energy and thoroughness with which its cities have been transformed in the 1990s have lessons for urban development everywhere. The Anxious City examines the problem of the contemporary city through a series of detailed case studies: Poundbury, Milton Keynes, Liverpool's Albert Dock redevelopment, Trafalgar Square, Canary Wharf, the Great Court of the British Museum, and central Manchester after the 1996 IRA bomb. It deals with some broader cultural phenomena too: the continuing attraction of picturesque aesthetics, and the lure of southern European urbanism (exemplified by the RIBA's canonisation of Barcelona) and the complex, contradictory relationship between urbanism in England and the USA. The experience of these places, the book argues, shows a culture where the idea of the city remains contested: the frantic redevelopment of city centres in the 1990s represented one vision of the city - the city of spectacular consumption, competing in some imaginary urban race with other world cities. But such development took place against continuing suburbanisation and sprawl. In spite of all the building works, the city was still being worked out This book is a cultural history that will be essential reading for anyone interested in the recent history of urban life. It argues that the contemporary city is uniquely anxious, caught between nostalgia for the past, and uncertainty about the future. At a crucial moment in the history of the city, it cuts through the urbanistic propaganda spread by architects and politicians. This unique and challenging study will be of interest to students and practitioners alike.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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The Enterprising City Centre: Manchester's Development Challenge
Gwyndaf Williams
(2003)
Paperback - 352 pages
Spon Press
ISBN: 0415252628
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
The re-emphasis on city centres as part of the wider agenda on urban renaissance and sustainable development has increased policy concerns in the field. "Enterprising City Centres" focuses on urban development processes and the dynamics of changing city centres with the context of the emergence of urban entrepreneurialism as a driving force in delivering urban development. It looks at the role of new modes of governance and the political economy of partnership working. The devastation caused to Manchester city centre as a result of the bombing of its core in June 1996 was to have a major physical, economic and cultural impact on the city and its key interests. The robustness of established public-private partnership arrangements enabled community leaders and key stakeholders to highlight the opportunities that this afforded to drive through a very ambitious renewal programme, and to enhance the city centre's competitiveness and quality. The dynamic redevelopment challenges presented to Manchester city centre has provided an ideal case-study for research into the issues of regeneration and the lessons learnt for master-planning, programme development and implementation can be applied to any city centre regeneration project. "Enterprising City Centres" reveals exemplars of local partnership working, the development and delivery of realistic implementation plans, and the range of instruments available to create both an improved quality to the urban environment and enhanced commercial and cultural competitiveness of our major city centres. That this was largely delivered in Manchester within a five-year period of intensive development and renewal activity amply demonstrates the value of such experience for wider dissemination.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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Pevsner Architectural Guides: Manchester
Clare Hartwell
(2002)
Paperback - 374 pages
Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300096666
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
Manchester is the first in a brand new series of affordable, pocket-sized guides to England's cities and the first to include integrated colour illustrations. Clare Hartwell's detailed guide examines the full range and variety of Manchester's buildings old and new: from the exceptional medieval buildings of the Cathedral and Cheetham's School to the architecture of the city's Victorian heyday; from the on-going battle to preserve the heritage of the world's first industrial city to the transformation of the city centre since the terrorist bomb of 1996. Clare Hartwell also assesses the city's recent building boom, both its successes (including Stephenson Bell's new International Convention Centre, Hodder Associate's Career Services unit and MBLC's Aytoun Library) and its failures. Fresh attention is given to neglected areas including Hulme, once notorious as home to one of the most dysfunctional housing estates in Europe but now undergoing one of the country's most ambitious experiments in community architecture. Major projects of national importance are also covered in detail, including Michael Wilford's Lowry arts centre in Salford and Trafford's Imperial War Museum in the North, Daniel Libeskind's first building in England, which promises to be as exciting and innovative as his celebrated projects elsewhere in Europe. Consideration is also given to the often-overlooked architecture of the 1960s, from the intimacy of the Oxford Road Station to the cool American lines of the ICS tower and the underrated Brutalism of the UMIST.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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Cities in Civilization
Peter Hall
(1999)
Paperback - 1180 pages
Phoenix Press
ISBN: 0753808153
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
This is an exploration of the history of cities and their role in the development of civilization, from the cultural crucibles of Athens, through Florence in the 15th century, to the industrial innovations of Manchester and Palo Alto, to the "city as freeway" in Los Angeles.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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