Architecture
A castle-like Art Deco building, surrounded by roads on all four sides, the former bank was built by the engineers Whinney, Son & Austen Hall between 1933 and 1935 and features carvings by the local sculptor John Ashton Floyd. It is constructed of Portland stone around a steel frame. Its neoclassical design is unusual for Manchester, the style perhaps more suited to the architecture of Liverpool, as most of Manchester's buildings were Neogothic.
"The proportions are ingeniously calculated, as Lutyens ... adored to do. The top stage is two-thirds of the stage from the obelisks to the next set-back, and that middle stage is two-thirds of the bottom stage." It is sometimes known as the The King of King Street because of its distinct structure and height.
Read more about this topic: Midland Bank Building, Manchester
Famous quotes containing the word architecture:
“Art is a jealous mistress, and, if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)