On the demolition of THE CENOTAPH

Dear Sirs

I write concerning the proposed demolition and relocation of the Cenotaph in St. Peter's Square, Manchester and the consequent negative impact on this important public space.

My objections are twofold, both to the proposed demolition and to the proposed resiting. 

Firstly the position of the Cenotaph, an important piece of design in its own right, was clearly intended to give the monument added significance beyond St. Peter's Square, appearing prominently in vistas along Mosley Street and Lower Mosley Street, Oxford Street and Peter Street. It is also an important feature in the unfolding public pedestrian route of Library Walk, a unique piece of Manchester's townscape which is threatened by another similarly ill-advised proposal. The placing of the Cenotaph and its subsequent embellishment was intended to dignify the civic realm of a city which had been badly affected by the two World Wars and sought to turn those tragedies to public good through a commemorative space. Despite the encroachment of tram lines and platforms this important piece of urban spatial composition survives, and the relationship between the Cenotaph and the nearly contemporaneous Central Library is salvageable. The proposed removal suggests that this history is now regarded as a public embarrassment, and is better tidied away to a less prominent location.

Proposals for the initial St. Peter's Square design competition simply relocated the platforms and canopies so the original relationship could be reinstated. In removing those platforms though, the present application has rather needlessly removed the Cenotaph as well. The excuse for this treatment is the projected increase in tram traffic which will be created by the new metrolink line intended to run down Princess Street and join the existing line at Mosley Street, precisely the area where it is planned to relocate the Cenotaph. 

Which brings me to my second objection. The relocated Cenotaph has little defined relationship to its surrounding buildings and streets. A tentative relationship to Lloyd Street could be observed, but the view along Fountain Street and towards the gable of the Town Hall Extension has been ignored. An axial relationship to the often closed rear entrance to the Town Hall is established but is relatively weak in its treatment.

The most telling omission from the images which accompany the present application are the new tramlines, junctions and attendant uprights to support cables and lights which will seriously compromise the new Cenotaph and surround it on the Princess Street and Mosley Street sides. If the purpose of this expensive proposal is to remove the Cenotaph from the negative proximity to the metrolink then it clearly fails, and the Cenotaph should stay in the honoured position it currently holds. The years of neglect to which it has been subject, through harmful neighbouring construction and inappropriate cleaning can be rectified by a careful though overdue restoration of the memorial in its intended location.

Yours faithfully

Eamonn Canniffe
Programme Leader, MA Architecture + Urbanism
Manchester School of Architecture

Regarding the proposed obstruction of LIBRARY WALK

Dear Sirs

I wish to object to the proposed plan to construct an obstructing pavilion in Library Walk, thereby rendering this important pedestrian route redundant. I write as an internationally recognised expert in urban design, but more importantly as a citizen of Manchester, and it is the civic amenity of Library Walk which I wish to defend from an act of wholly unnecessary vandalism.

Since the construction of the Central Library and the Town Hall Extension this route has been a convenient path for citizens between two major public places, namely Albert Square and St. Peter's Square. It was a pedestrian route decades before pedestrianisation became a vogue in urban design.

But E.Vincent Harris's skill went beyond the prosaically utilitarian. Citizens were offered a unique aesthetic experience which Manchester City Council should seek to protect. The narrowing of the space adds a sense of anticipation to the route in either direction, because it is clearly a very carefully integrated piece of architectural and urban composition of the highest calibre. The controlled views that terminate the route, either that of the restrained nineteenth century neoclassicism of the Friends' Meeting House or the sublime and timeless monumental composition of the Cenotaph are a unique twentieth century contribution to Manchester's genius loci. The unfolding view was identified as a key attribute to townscape and here Manchester has a supreme example if the City Council would but realise it.

As architectural designs Harris's two buildings are completely resolved in their own terms despite their differing aesthetic languages, a level of completion which was entirely typical of the era in which they were built. The careful geometric composition of the urban space between them is also fully resolved. This completion leads to aesthetic problems for any proposed intervention since it will inevitably take the form of a dissonant and jarring obstruction in an environment which is governed by proportion.

The current proposal commits a number of errors, providing ample opportunity for litter to gather in the narrow corners created, relying on the transparency of the glass to reduce the visual impact of the obstruction when precisely this material will attract pollution staining, and the inevitable visual clutter of warning signs and administrative detritus which will accumulate. But the worst error of all is that the proposal creates cul de sacs, types of space which are fundamentally anti-urban in character. Permeability of urban fabric is a key tenet of successful urban design, a lesson which this current proposal has not learnt, and which will be negated by the proposed construction of gates.

I therefore urge Manchester City Council to reconsider, and furthermore to recognise that Library Walk is a unique urbanistic asset where Harris was right first time.

Yours faithfully

Eamonn Canniffe M.A. Dip. Arch (Cantab)
Programme Leader, MA in Architecture + Urbanism
Manchester School of Architecture

Sir Edwin Lutyens et al: The Cenotaph, Manchester 1923-24