Manchester Arndale - History - Early Days

Early Days

The centre was divided by Market Street and Cannon Street. South of Market Street, on the site of the old Guardian buildings, was a branch of Boots. Market Street was bridged by a mall, Knightsbridge and later Voyager Bridge. The part between Market Street and Cannon Street was mostly two-storey and contained most of the anchor stores and access to the office block. Ground-level entrances were at the upper level from High Street and at the lower level from Corporation Street, taking advantage of a slope of about 24 feet (7 m). A centrally-placed entrance from Market Street entered via a mezzanine into Hallé Square, a full-height open space. These areas remained fundamentally unchanged in 2009. North of Cannon Street, the lower floor was occupied by the bus station, with the upper floor shops, and 60 flats above them. At the High Street end was a two-floor market area. Cannon Street was bridged by a mall at the Corporation Street end and underpassed by a tunnel at the High Street end. There was a continuous pathway around the centre, but not at a single level. At the High Street end a multi-storey car park was sited above the market centre and Cannon Street. In all there were 1,360 yards (1,240 m) of mall. Underneath the centre was a full-circuit full-height service road, ½ mile (0.8 km) in length, with access from Withy Grove. By taking advantage of the change in height, the architects hoped to solve the problem of persuading shoppers to use the upper shopping area. While the northern part had no anchor stores, the car park and bus station meant that foot traffic passed through the area avoiding quiet spots.

The final building was considered excessively large. The Guardian described it in 1978 as "an awful warning against thinking too big in Britain's cities", and "so castle-like in its outer strength that any passing medieval army would automatically besiege it rather than shop in it ...". The underground railway scheme was abandoned by 1976 and the only deck access was across Corporation Street to another Town & City development in the Shambles. At the official opening, one of its champions, Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw, Mayor of Manchester, commented, "I didn't think it would look like that when I saw the balsa wood models". The "unrepentant" architects responded that they had provided what they had been asked to provide. Kenneth Stone said in 1978 "We're not responsible for everything in there, but we're not sorry about the decisions we took as opposed to those which were forced upon us." The critics' opinion did not mellow with time, and it was described as "aggressive externally" in 1991. The Economist noted in 1996 that it had "long been regarded as one of Europe's ugliest shopping centres. ... the epitome of lousy modern architecture ... was hated". The Financial Times in 1997 called it "outstandingly ugly" and in 2000 "one of Britain's least-loved buildings".

The main cause of its poor reception was its external appearance. Most of the centre was covered by pre-cast concrete panels faced with ceramic tiles. The deep buff tiles were made by Shaw Hathernware, a colour described "bile yellow" "putty and chocolate" (some parts were brown) and "vomit-coloured". They inspired the epithet "the longest lavatory wall in Europe" (and variations), poking fun at the developers' claims. According to The Guardian, the description was coined by Norman Shrapnel, the paper's political columnist.