The pre-World War II building is notable for its timeless, "space-age"[3] quality and is often mistaken for being much younger than it is due to its futuristic avant garde appearance.[4] The building is futuristart deco, specifically streamline moderne with its horizontal lines and curved corners. It is clad in a combination of opaque and vitrolite glass. It was considered highly radical at the time, and incorporates what was at the time a growing technology, curtain walling.[5]
Unlike the London and Glasgow Express buildings, the Manchester building was designed by the engineer for all three buildings, Sir Owen Williams.[6] It is considered the best of the three Express Buildings,[7][8] and is admired by architects (such as Norman Foster)[9] and Mancunians alike.[10][11] The building was Grade II*-listed in 1974, just 35 years after its initial construction, and remains Greater Manchester's youngest II*-listed building.[12]
History
The building was required to accommodate existing growth at the Daily Express during the 1930s. During this decade the Daily Express was the most circulated newspaper in the world with sales of up to 2.25 million.[13]Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, owner of the Daily Express, commissioned three buildings in London, Manchester and Glasgow which would help accommodate this growth. Beaverbrook stipulated that all three buildings should be of the highest architectural quality, and assigned renowned engineer Sir Owen Williams to assist in the delivery of them.[14]
The London building opened in 1931, followed by the Glasgow building in 1937 and the Manchester building in 1939. Although similar to both buildings, it was uniquely different with Williams acting as engineer and architect; the former two were both designed by Ellis and Clark. The Glasgow and London buildings were designed by chartered architects while Williams, although not a qualified architect, was a competent designer. The interior of the London building is lavishly decorated, but suffers from a poor and dense site. The architecture of the exterior and site of the Manchester building is regarded as superior which allows the building to shine. Williams kept the design simple, preferring curved corners, cantilever roof rails and a three-storey turret; all these features share more in common with a futurist streamline moderne design rather than art deco.[14]
Only 35 years after opening, the building was Grade II*-listed on 3 October 1974.[6][15] The initial client of the building, the Daily Express, left Manchester in the late 1980s,[16] possibly because other buildings in the area were in a poor state of repair.[15] However, after the Daily Express decided to leave the city, there was no new press which expressed interest in continuing the building's role as a printing centre, so instead this was discontinued; but printing does still continue in the area.[17]
Architecture
Express Building roof detail
The building's corners are curved, taking inspiration from the 1930s streamline moderne movement. It features typical Art Deco motifs: rounded corners, setbacks and a simple contrasting clear and black glass curtain wall. The Express began printing there in 1938, having been on the same site since 1927. Construction had to take place in stages so publishing could continue without interruption.
Originally, it was possible for passers by to peer into the main hall to see the large newspaper printing press.[18] When the building was converted during the 1990s, the glass was made reflective so that outsiders could not see the interior of the building.[18]
Nikolaus Pevsner described the building as an "all-glass front, absolutely flush, with rounded corners and translucent glass and black glass" and "a most impressive sight from the street, particularly when lit up at night."[2]
The Express Building influenced Norman Foster during his youth, describing "I was very taken with the Daily Express building, for example, from the Thirties, wonderfully curved with black glass".[19] "I knew it was there, and I went looking for it. It was not in a part of town that you could just stumble across it. I remember the chromed strips and the Vitrolite that the black façade was made of". Foster's first successful work was the Willis Faber and Dumas Headquarters (1975) in Ipswich, a building which share many features with the Express Building such as the use of dark glass, curtain walling and few right angled corners. The Willis Building is now Grade I listed.
Recent history
The building has been extended four times in its history, the most recent being between 1993 and 1995,[20] and has now been converted into apartments and offices for the Expressnetworks company. The former printing press was refurbished in the late 1990s and finished in 2000.[21] This was able to be done only through funding by the Express Group and regeneration grants. The structure was sold to Washington, D.C.–based A&A Investments in 2006 for £20.5million, after previous owners Stockbourne had occupied the building for 12 months.[20] In April 2013, the building was put up for sale with an asking price of £9.5million.[22] The building is undergoing significant works, and appears to be vacant during them as seen from the main road, as of February 2019.[needs update]
↑ "Manchester Architecture part three". Manchester Confidential. 21 April 2010. Retrieved 8 December 2011. First time visitors to the city frequently wonder if it was built within the last decade
↑ "The ascent of Manchester". The Daily Telegraph. 24 May 2002. Retrieved 8 December 2011. For the first time since 1939, when Sir Owen Williams built his Daily Express building, it is possible to turn to Manchester not with a shudder but with keen anticipation.
↑ "Daily Express Building London: Fleet Street". e-architect.co.uk. 6 March 2014. Retrieved 21 March 2014. The Express Building in Manchester (1939) is considered the best of the three due to its superior exterior design and better site and was the only one of the three to be designed by Sir Owen Williams.
↑ "Manchester Express Building"(PDF). GVA Grimley. Archived from the original(PDF) on 5 April 2012. Retrieved 9 December 2011. The building has been described by Sir Norman Foster as one of his top five favourite buildings in the world
Art Deco, short for the French Arts décoratifs, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in Paris in the 1910s, and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920s to early 1930s. Through styling and design of the exterior and interior of anything from large structures to small objects, including how people look, Art Deco has influenced bridges, buildings, ships, ocean liners, trains, cars, trucks, buses, furniture, and everyday objects including radios and vacuum cleaners.
Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank is an English architect and designer. Closely associated with the development of high-tech architecture, Foster is recognised as a key figure in British modernist architecture. His architectural practice Foster + Partners, first founded in 1967 as Foster Associates, is the largest in the United Kingdom, and maintains offices internationally. He is the president of the Norman Foster Foundation, created to 'promote interdisciplinary thinking and research to help new generations of architects, designers and urbanists to anticipate the future'. The foundation, which opened in June 2017, is based in Madrid and operates globally. Foster was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1999.
Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Inspired by aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In industrial design, it was used in railroad locomotives, telephones, buses, appliances, and other devices to give the impression of sleekness and modernity.
Ancoats is an area of Manchester, England, next to the Northern Quarter, the northern part of Manchester city centre.
The Willis Building in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, is one of the earliest buildings designed by Norman Foster and Wendy Cheesman after establishing Foster Associates. Constructed between 1970 and 1975 for the insurance firm now known as Willis Towers Watson, it is widely considered a landmark in the development of the 'high tech' architectural style. The building houses some 1,300 office staff in open-plan offices spread over three floors.
Sir Evan Owen Williams was an English engineer and architect, known for being the principal engineer for the original Wembley Stadium, and later Gravelly Hill Interchange as well as a number of key modernist buildings, including the Express Building in Manchester and the D10 and D6 Buildings at the Boots Factory Site in Nottingham.
Thomas Smith Tait was a Scottish modernist architect. He designed a number of buildings around the world in Art Deco and Streamline Moderne styles, notably St. Andrew's House on Calton Hill, Edinburgh, and the pylons for Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Harry Albert Norris was an Australian architect based in Melbourne, Victoria. He was especially known for his 1930s Art Deco and Streamline Moderne commercial work in the Melbourne central business district, and was one of the most prolific and successful interwar architects in the city.
Pigmented structural glass, also known generically as structural glass and as vitreous marble, and marketed under the names Carrara glass, Sani Onyx, and Vitrolite, among others, is a high-strength, colored glass. Developed in the United States in 1900, it was widely used around the world in the first half of the 20th century in Art Deco and Streamline Moderne buildings. It also found use as a material for signs, tables, and areas requiring a hygienic surface. Over time, the trademarked name "vitrolite" became a generic term for the glass.
The Midland Hotel is a Streamline Moderne building in Morecambe, Lancashire, England. It was built by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS), in 1933, to the designs of architect Oliver Hill, with sculpture by Eric Gill, and murals by Eric Ravilious. It is a Grade II* listed building. The hotel has been restored by Urban Splash with architects Union North, Northwest Regional Development Agency and Lancaster City Council.
The architecture of Manchester demonstrates a rich variety of architectural styles. The city is a product of the Industrial Revolution and is known as the first modern, industrial city. Manchester is noted for its warehouses, railway viaducts, cotton mills and canals – remnants of its past when the city produced and traded goods. Manchester has minimal Georgian or medieval architecture to speak of and consequently has a vast array of 19th and early 20th-century architecture styles; examples include Palazzo, Neo-Gothic, Venetian Gothic, Edwardian baroque, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and the Neo-Classical.
The Daily Express Building is a Grade II* listed building located in Fleet Street in the City of London. It was designed in 1932 by Ellis and Clark to serve as the home of the Daily Express newspaper and is one of the most prominent examples of art-deco / Streamline Moderne architecture in London.
Daily Express Building is the name used to refer to a series of art-deco buildings commissioned by Beaverbrook Associated Newspapers in the 1930s to house the three offices of the Daily Express newspaper:
Moderne architecture, also sometimes referred to as Style Moderne or simply Moderne, Jazz Age, Moderne, Jazz Modern or Jazz style, describes certain styles of architecture popular from 1925 through the 1940s. It is closely related to Art Deco. Both belong to the architectural Modern Movement, which broke with tradition on purpose to create a fresh look that was uninfluenced by earlier forms and styles.
The Van Alen Building is a modern apartment and penthouse block on the seafront in Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. It was named after William Van Alen, the architect of New York City's Chrysler Building and is designed as a 21st-century interpretation of the Art Deco and Streamline Moderne styles. It was completed in 2001.
The Plaza Cinema is an art deco cinema in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, owned by Merlin Cinemas. It was built by Odeon Cinemas and known as the Odeon Weston-super-Mare until 2023. It was designed by Thomas Cecil Howitt and is a Grade II listed building.
The Malloch Building is a private residential apartment building on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco designed in the Streamline Moderne style and built in 1937. The building, one of the best examples of its type in San Francisco, is also known as Malloch Apartments, Malloch Apartment Building, and simply by its address: 1360 Montgomery Street. Some have called it the "Ocean-Liner House", though other Moderne buildings have also been known by that nickname.
Great Ancoats Street is a street in the inner suburb of Ancoats, Manchester, England. It forms one of the stretches of the city's inner ring road.
Ibex House is an eleven storey Art Deco office building on the east side of the City of London, just to the north of the Tower of London. It was designed by Fuller, Hall and Foulsham in the Streamline Moderne style, with curved corners and distinctive horizontal bands of faience cladding and black-framed fenestration. Construction started as a speculative development in 1935 and the building was completed in 1937. It became a Grade II listed building in 1982.
British industrial architecture has been created, mainly from 1700 onwards, to house industries of many kinds in Britain, home of the Industrial Revolution in this period. Both the new industrial technologies and industrial architecture soon spread worldwide. As such, the architecture of surviving industrial buildings records part of the history of the modern world.
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