Trafford Centre - Architecture

Architecture

The Trafford Centre's unorthodox style of architecture was prompted by the wish to offer a unique shopping experience. John Whittaker, chairman of Peel Holdings had to convince architects that a lavish design would not alienate shoppers.

When we first started the architects said, "you shouldn’t be doing all this and giving it all the razzmatazz and showbiz, leave that to the retailers. Make it plain, make it clinical, make it white and hospitalised and let them do the work". So then we put in the paintings, we put in the real gold leaf, we put artefacts everywhere, paintings. It is the people’s palace. It is something to attract shoppers ... to give them the Dallas effect. —John Whittaker.

The design was a collaboration between the architectural practices of Chapman Taylor and Manchester-based Leach Rhodes Walker. The construction contractor was Bovis Lend Lease, with structural engineering services provided by the WSP Group. Architects on the scheme produced over 3,000 drawings and the construction process required twenty-four on-site architects to monitor the construction and interior design process.

The centre has four main areas located across two floors: Peel Avenue, Regent Crescent, The Dome, and The Orient and was designed so that visitors enter on both main shopping floors in equal numbers. This avoids the problem where visitors do not visit the upper floors and retailers avoid upper floor units. The ODEON Cinema is located on the third floor along with other leisure facilities such as Laser Quest. The Trafford Centre was built to be "future-proof" in the words of developer John Whittaker with the infrastructure for an additional fourth floor built during construction.

The Trafford Centre is Rococo/late Baroque in design, with eclectic elements of Art Deco and Egyptian Revival. It is decorated primarily in shades of white, pink and gold with ivory, jade and caramel coloured marble throughout. Three domed atria are located along the length of the mall, and Peel claim the middle dome is bigger than that at St Paul's Cathedral. The central dome cost £5 million to construct. The Trafford Centre has 45,000 square metres of marble and granite flooring from Montignosa and Quarlata in Italy at a cost of £5.8 million (1996 value) and gold leaf adorns the building's columns. The marble floors are polished nightly giving the shopping centre an opulent style.

The Trafford Centre has features which pay homage to the local area and North West England where the Peel Group are proactive and have the long-term objective of making the region the most economically successful and sustainable in the United Kingdom. The Orient food hall is themed around a steam ship, paying homage to the Industrial Revolution and the nearby Manchester Ship Canal. The Lancashire Rose also permeates the décor on window panes and interior cornices. Mythical griffin statues adorn the exterior, the heraldic symbol of the de Trafford baronets who historically owned much of the land in modern-day Trafford.

Others however have criticised the deception of the fake palm trees and neo-classical decorative pillars which are not made of marble but decorated medium-density fibreboard. Architecture critic John Parkinson-Bailey plainly described the Trafford Centre as a building which "will not appeal to purists" and go on to describe the range of interior architecture as "bewildering". The Peel Group say that the striking and extrovert architecture is aimed at providing visual delight, to make the visitor's shopping experience more vivid.

Since it opened in 1998, advances have been made in lighting design and efficiency such as the growth of LED lighting. Since 2009, incandescent light bulbs have been phased out in favour of LED lighting allowing different shades of hue as well as greater efficiency.

Portraits around the walls of the mall depict members of the Whittaker family, founders of owner Peel Holdings. A Mercedes car belonging to the mother of Peel Holdings' chairman, John Whittaker, is displayed on the first floor mall outside F. Hinds.