Manchester Town Hall is a Victorian, Neo-gothic municipal building in Manchester, England. It is the ceremonial headquarters of Manchester City Council and houses a number of local government departments.
Designed by architect Alfred Waterhouse the town hall was completed in 1877. The building occupies a triangular site facing Albert Square and contains offices and grand ceremonial rooms such as the Great Hall which is decorated with the imposing Manchester Murals by Ford Madox Brown illustrating the history of the city. The entrance and Sculpture Hall contain busts and statues of influential figures including Dalton, Joule and Barbirolli. The exterior is dominated by the clock tower which rises to 87 metres (285 feet) and houses Great Abel, the clock bell.
In 1938, a detached Town Hall Extension was completed and is connected by two covered bridges over Lloyd Street. The town hall, which was granted Grade I listed building status on 25 February 1952. It is regarded as one of the finest interpretations of Gothic revival architecture in the world.
Read more about Manchester Town Hall: Architecture, Interior, Town Hall Extension, Reception
Famous quotes containing the words manchester, town and/or hall:
“The [nineteenth-century] young men who were Puritans in politics were anti-Puritans in literature. They were willing to die for the independence of Poland or the Manchester Fenians; and they relaxed their tension by voluptuous reading in Swinburne.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“Three miles long and two streets wide, the town curls around the bay ... a gaudy run with Mediterranean splashes of color, crowded steep-pitched roofs, fishing piers and fishing boats whose stench of mackerel and gasoline is as aphrodisiac to the sensuous nose as the clean bar-whisky smell of a nightclub where call girls congregate.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“Sweet death, small son, our instrument
Of immortality,
Your cries and hungers document
Our bodily decay.”
—Donald Hall (b. 1928)