Modernist Heroines article in Gender, Place & Culture by Morag Rose

Congratulations to Dr Morag Rose on the publication of her journal article in Gender, Place & Culture, ‘From an aviatrix to a eugenicist: walking with Manchester’s Modernist Heroines’, which documents Manchester’s Modernist Heroines, a joint local history project between the joint Loiterers Resistance Movement, Manchester Modernist Society and the Shrieking Violet in 2011. The article focuses on the alternative walking tour Morag developed, inspired by the ten twentieth-century women we highlighted through the project, and explores walking as feminist pedagogy; it's been great to see the project revisited, contextualised and reevaluated from a new perspective.

Read Morag's article online here.

Read the Manchester’s Modernist Heroines publication here, and find out more about the project and the heroines, here.

William Mitchell in Harlow: chapter in Modern Futures book

I've written a shortish reflection on my pilgrimage to the 'sculpture town' of Harlow, a mid-twentieth century new town in Essex, earlier this year, focusing on the redeveloped Water Gardens in the town centre and the architectural sculptor William Mitchell's gargoyle fountains, as a chapter for the new Modern Futures book.

Modern Futures, which is published by Uniformbooks, is edited by Hannah Neate and Ruth Craggs and is an outcome of the Modern Futures research network, which brought together academics, writers, artists, photographers and practitioners for a series of events and workshops around the country exploring questions around changing perceptions of the experience, appreciation and preservation of modern architecture. The book brings together contributions prompted, explored and developed through these events, as well as reflections from a few familiar projects from Manchester such as Angela Connelly and Matthew Steele's Sacred Suburbs survey and Manchester Modernist Society.

The book can be purchased online for £12 at www.colinsackett.co.uk/modernfutures.php.

An informal launch for the book, featuring brief introductions to the chapters by some of the contributors, will be held at King's College London on Wednesday 16 November from 6.15pm-8pm. The event is free and can be booked at www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/modern-futures-book-launch-tickets-28757715100.

Modernist Heroines tour, People’s History Museum, Thursday 18 August

Five years on from the joint LRM, Manchester Modernist Society and Shrieking Violet project, Manchester’s Modernist Heroines will be revisited in a free walking tour for the People’s History Museum at 2pm on Thursday 18 August.

Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day in 2011, Manchester’s Modernist Heroines celebrated ten overlooked women from the twenty and twenty first-centuries with connections to Manchester, from the architect Rachel Haugh to the geographer Doreen Massey to the Egyptologist Rosalie David and the sculptor and designer Mitzi Cunliffe. It culminated in a psychogeographic walk around Manchester, responding to sites significant to Manchester’s Modernist Heroines, and a publication bringing together creative and critical responses to the women by contemporary Mancunians, from interviews and essays to poetry and drawing. Read online:

The Modernist Heroines tour will be led by artist, researcher and activist Morag Rose as part of a series of events running alongside the People’s History Museum exhibition Loitering With Intent, which celebrates ten years of the LRM and brings together new contributions from writers, artists and activists as well as items from the LRM archive. For more information and to book visit www.phm.org.uk/whatson/manchester-modernist-heroines-walk.

Loitering With Intent continues until Friday 14 October.

The Shrieking Violet interviewed by Mark Reid

I was recently interviewed by playwright Mark Reid for his new project The Rudiment, which has the intention of interviewing a range of creative practitioners in depth. As I feel most contented and comfortable when walking and exploring, I took Mark for a walk along the River Mersey from East Didsbury to Stockport town centre, a route I often walk.

To read the interview, which discusses the practice of writing and interviewing, inspirations and motivations and my engagement with various creative projects, from Manchester Left Writers to Manchester School of Samba, visit http://therudiment.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/meandering-mersey-natalie-bradbury.html.

Listen online: All FM Friday Drivetime interview

I was invited to talk about my Pictures for Schools research and upcoming talk for the Manchester Centre for Regional History at Manchester Metropolitan University on Fiona Ledgard’s Friday Drivetime show on south Manchester radio station All FM.

During our discussion Fiona asked me to read a short extract from an article I have written about Pictures for Schools for the new issue of the modernist magazine of twentieth century architecture and design, which is themed ‘Forgotten’. In the article, I chose to focus on Pictures for Schools as a forgotten idea and ideal.

I also picked some songs for the show, some of them tenuously related to art and artists, including Meilyr Jones, the Velvet Underground, WE, Pins, LoneLady, Sauna Youth, David Bowie and Sacred Paws.

Listen to the show online:
For more information about the modernist, and to purchase the magazine, visit www.the-modernist.org/forgotten.

The Shrieking Violet in the Skinny (magazine launch tonight)

The Shrieking Violet is pleased to feature in the first issue of the Northwest edition of the Skinny, a free arts and culture magazine for Manchester and Liverpool which launches in Manchester at 2022NQ this evening (from 6pm, Facebook event here. Conveniently, the latest edition of the modernist magazine, themed 'Capital', is also launching this evening just down the road at the CIS tower, also from 6pm). The Shrieking Violet is represented in the feature 'What's Your Northwest', for which interviewees were asked questions about place, community and belonging. I was asked interesting questions, and answering them has really helped me think about how to approach the lecture I am doing about the Shrieking Violet for Unit X students at Manchester Metropolitan University in a couple of weeks, so I decided to reproduce the questions, and my answers, in full below.

Read the full magazine online here, or look out for paper copies around Manchester:

I've not read the whole magazine yet, but there are some great features by former Shrieking Violet contributors and collaborators Lauren Velvick (who previews an upcoming show at the Cornerhouse) and Sam Lewis, who interviews Shrieking Violet favourite Rozi Plain.

TS: What motivated you to set up The Shrieking Violet, and get involved in independent publishing and particularly in Manchester? Who/what were you inspired by, and what did you hope to do with the Shrieking Violet, both personally and in a wider community sense? 

SV: I moved to Manchester for university in 2005 and realised quickly that I wanted to make it my long-term home. After graduating I did a qualification in newspaper journalism but it was a terrible time to be trying to enter the media and it was difficult to even get work experience. I was unemployed for nine months, but decided to make the best of the situation so started blogging about the city around me. In summer 2009, I decided to put the skills I'd learnt on my journalism course to use and take the Shrieking Violet off the page to become a printed zine – if I couldn't be part of the established media then I was going to make my own media, covering things I found interesting that weren't being written about elsewhere. I was disillusioned with the way in which Manchester was marketed, which was all about shopping and consumption, so the Shrieking Violet was conceived as an alternative guide to Manchester which encouraged readers to make their own fun, think creatively and realise the adventures they could have in the city without spending a penny. Having a project and putting something out into the world helped focus my life and lift me out of depression.

I'd wanted to make a zine since I was a teenager, as my dad had loads of old punk/indie/goth zines in the attic, but when it came to making my own I decided to stay away from music as there were already Manchester zines which were covering music very well. Belle Vue zine (which started in December 2008) was a major influence on me realising that the city itself, its residents and their memories and experiences, joys and frustrations, could be the subject of a zine.

TS: And what keeps you motivated to do it – what's your favourite thing about what you do? 

SC: The great thing about blogs and zines is that as soon as you've written about a subject you will find someone else who is writing about something related to that topic too, and more often than not discovering each other starts a dialogue and reciprocal relationship. My favourite thing about making the Shrieking Violet is all the people I have met, who have gone on not just to be contributors but regular correspondents and sources of motivation and inspiration. One of the most rewarding things has been being asked to collaborate with other people, and take part in one-off projects. In 2010 the organisers of Salford's Sounds from the Other City music festival asked me to design the official programme as a special edition of the Shrieking Violet, so I teamed up with illustrator Dominic Oliver to create a souvenir guide to the festival's highlights and the surrounding area. In 2011, the Shrieking Violet got together with psychogeographic walking group the Loiterers Resistance Movement and architecture enthusiasts Manchester Modernist Society for a project called Manchester's Modernist Heroines, which celebrated ten overlooked Manchester women from the twentieth and twenty first centuries through a publication and series of walks.

TS: You write extensively about Manchester and the Northwest region on themes of place, history, society, belonging, architecture, and more. What particularly fascinates you about the place you live, its people, its community, if you had to define it...? 

SV: What fascinates me about Manchester is how much history is written into the streets and buildings, to experience as you go about your everyday life. From street names based on the textile trade to churches, public parks and swimming baths, you really get a sense of Manchester's past and how society used to be. You can marvel at the infrastructure of the industrial age by looking at canals and railway viaducts which are still in use today, get a sense of textile magnates' wealth by looking up at grand warehouses (even if they are now turned into warehouses or apartments), try to imagine life in the former mass workplaces of mills and factories, now standing silent, and see remnants of industrial philanthropy in lads' clubs and ragged schools. These aren't the kind of heritage venues where you have to pay a tenner to get in, put plastic coves on over your shoes or peer at rooms over velvet ropes – these are buildings which in many cases are still getting on with a job and fulfilling a use, even if it's not their original purpose. Manchester's cityscape tells you just as much as any palace or castle about how people used to live, work and socialise, as well as constantly changing and embracing the future.

TS: What's the most unexpected or surprising thing you've discovered about this city/its culture/its people while researching and writing about it (or indeed reading articles others have contributed to the zine)? 

SV: What is unexpected and surprising is some the subjects which crop up over and over again as being important to people living in Manchester. One of these is public transport. The Shrieking Violet has featured articles on everything from never-realised plans to build a tunnel linking the city's two main stations – along with a specially-drawn, London-style map showing what an underground system for Manchester might look like – to an illustrated article about Metrolink, a reappreciation Manchester's neglected Victoria station and even an homage to Finglands buses! I also loved being introduced to some of the inspiring and often overlooked stories of the women celebrated in the Manchester's Modernist Heroines project, who might not have crossed my radar otherwise – from mummy expert Rosalie David to radio producer and presenter Olive Shapley and sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe.

TS: And what's your most treasured revelation - what are you really glad you found out? 

SV: The thing I treasure most is the range of the people who have featured in the Shrieking Violet, whether as interviewees or as contributors. Some of my favourite interviews have been with Manchester's street buskers, who have really interesting stories to tell yet many people never stop to talk to them. I also love finding out about the particular passions or expertise of contributors – for example one man, who has been speaking Esperanto since 1967, wrote about all the international adventures the language has enabled him to have. Another took it upon himself to swim in all of Greater Manchester's numerous public swimming baths, and has now produced an illustrated guide. I've also enjoyed finding about other people's projects, for example film-makers who have written about their work. In 2010 I made a media special of the Shrieking Violet focusing on Manchester's history as a centre of the newspaper industry and this prompted someone who once worked inside Manchester's Daily Express building to get in touch, leading to an article about what it is really like to work for the Daily Sport! I've also loved it when members of Manchester Modernist Society have shared their enthusiasm for some of the overlooked and often neglected mosaics, murals and other artworks which brighten the walls of university buildings and various other places around Manchester.

TS: There seems to be a very strong, visible independent print community in Manchester, Liverpool and beyond. Would you say it's changed/evolved since you first got involved – maybe got bigger, wider...? What kind of community have you encountered, why do you think it's so fertile and what binds you all together? 

SV: The thing that makes self-publishing so attractive is that anyone can do it, whether they are just photocopying pencil drawings and poems or lovingly screenprinting original designs, and there's a growing audience for that tactile, hand-printed, limited edition format. There have never been more opportunities for self-publishers and members of the print community to show off their work, and one area which is really booming is zine fairs and print fairs. Another interesting development is how established zines have become within institutions such as colleges and universities – it's quite common now for illustration, design, photography and fashion courses, for example, to include a student project on making a zine, and it's nice when groups formed at university stay together and continue to publish after graduation.

TS: What is 'your' Manchester? If you had to choose just five places for people new to the city to visit on a sort of 'alternative' tour, what would they be and why? 

SV: 'My Manchester':

1. Canals

The Ashton, Bridgewater, Rochdale and Manchester Ship canals are the city's underlooked green spaces. Whereas once canals would have been polluted and congested, today they are places for pleasure, from canal boating, foraging and bird-watching to walking and cycling. For an awe-inspiring sight head to Barton (near the Trafford Centre), where the Bridgewater Canal makes a spectacular crossing of the wide Manchester Ship Canal by aqueduct, and cars drive over a swing bridge.

2. Ancoats

Ancoats is dubbed 'the world's first industrial suburb', or the cradle of the industrial revolution, and a number of centuries-old mills still remain. Today the area is being converted to residential and commercial use, but Dan Dubowitz's public art project the Peeps, which teases viewers to find a number of small viewing holes dotted around the outside of buildings, gives a tantalising glimpse of what might once have gone inside the area's factories and workshops.

3. Public parks

Manchester is not known for its green spaces, but in fact some of the county's first public parks were in Manchester and Salford; Philips Park in east Manchester, Queen's Park, Harpurhey and Peel Park, Salford all opened in 1846, whilst Heaton Park in Prestwich is one of the largest parks in Europe. In the city centre, too, there are plenty of quiet places to sit and eat your lunch, lay around in the sun or have picnics and barbecues in summer. Like most places in Manchester, the city's green spaces sit on layers of history – literally in the cases of some of the city centre gardens like Angel Meadows and St John's Gardens, Castlefield, which are on the site of slums and mass burial sites.

4. Residential suburbs

Wander around some of the city's suburbs and residential communities to see how other people have lived over time, from the Georgian cobbled streets of Fairfield Moravian settlement, nestled amid the suburban sprawl of Tameside, to the big houses around Old Broadway in Didsbury and Chorltonville, an Arts and Crafts-style village-within-a-village in Chorlton complete with its own village green.

5. Star and Garter

Manchester is known for its music and party culture after all! It may not be the city's most glamorous venue, but the Star and Garter really caters for music fans (and people like me who might not go to clubs otherwise) by offering theme-nights for lovers of certain bands, from Belle & Sebastian to Pulp and Pixies and, of course, the Smiths/Morrissey! It's been a big part of my life since I arrived in Manchester as a student – the first Manchester gig I went to was at the Star and Garter – but there's a chance it might get knocked down to make way for an extension to Piccadilly train station, so I recommend making the most of it while it's still here!

TS: If you had to evoke the character of the city you live in in just a few words, how would you describe it?

SV: (This was the question I found hardest.) The rain's just a distraction.

Tune into architecture: LoneLady's The Utilitarian Poetic/Manchester's Modernist Heroines walking tour to be repeated

As Love Architecture festival celebrates buildings great and good, one installation is reminding us of an equally important part of the built environment which tends to attract less excitement – the infrastructure all around us, that gets us from A to B.

The Utilitarian Poetic makes a new song by Warp Records' LoneLady, resident in one of the nearby housing blocks that is surrounded physically and aurally by the the hum of the car, available to anyone who plugs their headphones into a temporary socket cemented into a slip road where the Mancunian Way curves down towards the ground. The work inhabits a barren, leftover landscape – battered flowers and trees grow out of an undulating floor of rocks, discarded sweet wrappers and broken glass – where one isn't inclined to stop. It's demarcated only by a lavender graffiti tag, one among several impermanent scrawls. The song, 'Good Morning, Midnight', loops metallic percussion, distant echoes and fade-outs over bassy undertones, constantly on the move; even its rhythmic bleeping could be there to guide you across the next road. The hiss of the traffic continues in the background, audible over the headphones, as cars charge past, cyclists puff and pedestrians scurry home.

As I stand, a lone listener plugged into a wall for five minutes, no-one stops to ask me what I'm doing, or comes to have to go. They're all plugged into thoughts and sounds of their own. But it made me think: if our roads are part of the physical, utilitarian infrastructure, then music and dancing are part of a cultural infrastructure that's no less necessary; an unofficial, after hours route to escape where dreams are dreamed, connections are made, friendships are forged and networks come and go.

A pamphlet on The Utilitarian Poetic, including a location map, can be purchased for £1 from Manchester Modernist Society's pop-up shop in the Royal Exchange until Sunday June 24, 1pm-8.30pm. The installation runs for the same period (or as long as the life of the battery!).

In other news, the Manchester's Modernist Heroines walking tour, an outcome of a joint project between the Shrieking Violet, Manchester Modernist Society and the Loiterers Resistance Movement, will be repeated on Thursday June 21 as part of the Love Architecture festival.

the modernist issue 3 and other publications I have enjoyed recently

Issue 3 of Manchester Modernist Society's magazine the modernist, themed Boom or Bust, is out now, just in time for Christmas. I've been loose with this issue's theme and used it as an appreciation of some of my favourite, underrated 1960s films: Charlie Bubbles (written by Shelagh Delaney, directed by and starring Albert Finney and featuring Liza Minelli), The White Bus (written by Shelagh Delaney and directed by Lindsay Anderson), Mrs Brown, You'e Got a Lovely Daughter, a comedy musical starring the pop group Herman's Hermits, A Kind of Loving, and The London Nobody Knows (starring James Mason).

Whilst some of the films are seemingly slight or frivolous, all share a preoccupation with the new housing projects and changing types of living that were replacing bomb damaged cities and Victorian slums, capturing a sense of optimism and hope for the future that we now know was short lived.

Mrs Brown, You've Got A Lovely Daughter might come across as slightly cheesy, but I've watched it twice and find it genuinely charming. I found myself singing It's Nice to be Out in the Morning every day when I left the house for weeks afterwards!

If you're interested in finding out more about Manchester and Salford on screen, look out for historian CP Lee's talks which take place at the Cornerhouse from time to time, as well as his Hollywood of the North Coach Trip, or visit his sites It's A Hotun and Manchester Film History.

the modernist issue 3 also features an introduction from Shrieking Violet inspiration Owen Hatherley, as well as Eddy Rhead on TV broadcasting from the north, Matthew Whitfield on Liverpool's Brutalist sandcastle, Dan Russell on Liverpool International Garden Festival, Aidan Turner-Bishop on Hornsea Pottery, Morag Rose on Modernist Essex, Benjamin Tallis on Leningrad, Stephen Hale on FIAT's Lingotto factory, Christien Garcia on Canadian Modernism, and news and reviews. For stockists or to subscribe visit www.the-modernist-mag.co.uk.

Other publications which have made me happy recently:

• FEAST is a new food and art journal initiated by Manchester-based curator and writer Laura Mansfield. Issue 1 is out now, themed Indulgence, featuring everything from recipes to an essay on food and film.
• The latest edition of annual arts journal Corridor 8, which assumes a different form each year, is out now. Issue 3 is divided into three editions, the first of which focuses on commercial galleries across the north of England, containing interviews with their directors on their motivations and the challenges and advantages of operating outside London.
• Canning is a beautifully designed and illustrated fanzine about the area of Liverpool by writer Kenn Taylor, artist Natalie Hughes and designer Mike Carney that combines creative writing with personal observations on place. Kenn Taylor has also recently written a more in depth book about another part of Liverpool, entitled A Brief History of Edge Hill, as part of the Metal Culture project in the city, designed by Ultimate Holding Company.
  
• COPY is a publication compiled by Yorkshire-based Critical Writing Collective. The current issue, titled Unfold, features a contribution by Manchester-based artist Daniel Fogarty. 'In Public' is a photo of a small belemnite fossil embedded in the polished stone of a basin in the toilets of the Bridgewater Hall. Due to certain obstacles (the fossil being in the ladies' toilets), I was asked to take the photograph.
• During a recent visit to London I bought a copy of art and culture magazine Garageland, which is published by east London's Transition Gallery. The current issue plays with the theme 'Fake'. Highlights include articles on the south Kent coast's 'pluto' houses and the craze for mock Tudor.

I also really enjoyed spending a couple of hours browsing the Archizines exhibition at the Architectural Association in Bloomsbury, featuring architecture zines from all over the world, including the modernist and Preston is my Paris. Other highlights included Block and Matzine from the UK, and a zine which photographed street furniture and public art across Latin America.

Meeting William Mitchell (the modernist magazine issue 2)

"Today it has become necessary to demolish the myth of the 'star' artist who only produces masterpieces for a small group of ultra-intelligent people...the artist must step down from his pedestal and be prepared to make a sign for a butcher's shop (if he knows how to do it). The artist must cast off the last rags of romanticism and become active as a man among men, well up in present-day techniques, materials and working methods. The designer of today re-establishes the long-lost contact between art and the public, between living people and art as a living thing."

Bruno Munari, Design as Art, 1966

At the start of July I traveled to London to meet William Mitchell, a prominent post-war architectural sculptor (and innovator in the use of materials such as a new type of concrete called Faircrete) whose work I have been visiting across Greater Manchester and Liverpool over the past year. I spent the afternoon with Mitchell and his wife Joy at their flat in Marylebone, where we watched black and white archive footage from several episodes of Tomorrow's World that were presented by Mitchell (he can't remember exactly when), and their local chip shop, where the couple's lively anecdotes continued (and lunch was paid for with the flourish of a £50 note).

We discussed things including: industrial design (Mitchell helped design the first 125 and 250 mph trains, which were tested at Marylebone); Prince Philip's (in)famous reaction "What the hell is that?" to his Minut Men sculptures outside Salford University (then Salford Technical College) when the Allerton Building was opened in 1967 (ironically, says Mitchell, the Prince had been heard to complain of a "lack of adventurousness" in contemporary architecture, and Mitchell's connection to Prince Philip goes back further, to when they both served in the navy during the war); the big personalities and back stories behind some of Manchester's most high profile buildings (such as the Piccadilly Hotel in Piccadilly Gardens, now the Ramada); his many commissions across the world and working with groups such as schoolchildren; having his own company, William Mitchell Design Consultants Group; Mitchell's numerous, sometimes controversial, speaking engagements; his Dodi and Diana memorial in Harrods; the rediscovery and reassessment of his work, including the renovation of a mural in Hawaii; public space and how to define 'public art'; the dying out of skills such as mosaic making, and why mosaics are not widely commissioned any more; the stigma attached to social housing, even in the post-war period; and the market-led state of art and architecture today ("it's not the quality of the art that makes the headlines but the record prices”).

The maquette for the doors to Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral hangs in the entrance to the Mitchells' flat, which also contains pieces of furniture he made, including two tables in the same style as his mosaic in the Piccadilly Hotel (possibly my favourite Mitchell piece) inset with waste products such as bits of old pianos. "You forget to look at them," said his wife, but the couple kindly moved their furniture around while I took photos.

The text below is a slightly longer version of the interview that will appear in Issue 2 of the modernist, accompanied by photos supplied by the Mitchells. the modernist is quarterly publication produced by Manchester Modernist Society. Issues cost £3.75 each — or £15 for a subscription (including postage).

Issue 2, which is themed 'brilliant', also features: Ben Tallis on Orford Ness; Eddy Rhead on the Arndale's Cromford Court set; Stephen Hale on painter Kit Wood; Laura Gaither on Conrad collectibles; Jack Hale on Salford's Stella Maris Salvation Army centre; Matthew Whitfield on Southgate, Runcorn; Richard Brook on Manchester's District Bank; and news and reviews.

Issue 2 will be launched, with wine, at Ferrious (in a converted railway arch on Whitworth Street West) on Thursday September 15 from 6-8pm.

It will also be available from Cornerhouse bookshop, Magma and RIBA Hub in Manchester, News from Nowhere in Liverpool, Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, Site gallery in Sheffield, Aye-Aye books in Glasgow, Magma and Tate Modern bookshops in London, PLACE in Belfast, do you read me?! in Berlin, Papercut in Stockholm, or online here.

William Mitchell: Artist, Designer, Inventor

A man, armed with a tube, is doodling giant-scale on a concrete wall. Dressed in white overalls he explains, from behind a protective helmet, that he is blasting the wall with grit, enthusiastically advocating the technique's potential for widespread decorative use. The man is William Mitchell, artist, designer, innovator, inventor – and sometime television personality. Mitchell made an entertaining presenter and the programme demonstrating sandblasting was just one of the episodes of Tomorrow's World he was asked to present because “I could talk at the same time and didn't confuse people with art”. He remembers,“I got lots of letters from doctors saying I would die at a very young age as my lungs would be filled with dust and to stop what I was doing” – although at 86 he is still very much alive and opinionated.

In the 1960s and '70s Mitchell, who had studied Industrial Design at the Royal College of Art, pioneered new techniques and materials, working with other professions such as architects, engineers and builders. In another edition of Tomorrow's World, Mitchell balances on a plank of wood above a building site in Croydon, where he is installing a textured concrete wall in an office block. He explains: “There were not many people in my line of work who would go out on the roof with the builders. That was unusual. If it was now I would have had to wear protective clothing I couldn't even get up the stairs in.” The most remarkable episode, though, is that in which he demonstrates a new technique he has come up with for advertising – an unrealised plan that have illuminated Manchester's Piccadilly Gardens with a 350ft by 65ft sign comprising thousands of lightbulbs triggered by films and photoelectric cells. Mitchell says you can still see the holes on Piccadilly Plaza where the bulbs would have gone.

Planners across the UK – and as far afield as America and Hawaii – wanted a piece of Mitchell for their developments, and he undertook hundreds of public and private commissions. These range from the small, functional and unobtrusive – clocks in schools, motorway detailing – to the grand – the massive (in Mitchell's eyes, "almost barbaric") doors to Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral (the design for which had to be signed off by the Pope) and, later, the Egyptian Room at Harrods. Mitchell was so prolific he can't remember the exact location and details of each artwork, but there are a several in some of Manchester's most striking and iconic Modernist buildings – a bold fibreglass mural in the entrance to the plush CIS Tower, panels around the lift shaft in the snaking Gateway House on Piccadilly Approach and sculptured decoration covering the Humanities Building at the University of Manchester.

Mitchell's most publicly visible work in Manchester and Salford is his Minut Men, three giant concrete monsters outside the University of Salford. Mitchell says he had to set them on fire to get the plastic moulds off* (something he notes would never be allowed today, especially so close to the main road!), and the figures are extraordinarily detailed, covered with patterns and inlaid with mosaic. He explains: “I wanted to do something with the material which was not indicative of trying to be something else. As it was new, let it be new. It had as much to do with the practicality and being outside. I also had to take into account, was it waterproof and was it vandal proof?”

Often, says Mitchell, his artworks used a “very, very involved process”, a challenge to himself to prove they were possible. He remembers: “It was almost an exercise in character building, the artworks were so hard to get to the finish of!” Another unusual use of materials can be seen in the epic mosaic, gleaming with objects such as bottle tops and textured by the addition of gravel, that climbs the full height of the staircase in the Piccadilly Hotel in Manchester's Piccadilly Gardens. Made of bits of furniture and pianos set in resin, Mitchell says "there's a richness to it". It took up the whole of his studio and he had a whole team sanding it down as he wanted to show “there was still the possibility of doing hand craftwork”.

Mitchell finds public art to be a problematic concept: “One of the troubles of public art is the public are not asked whether or not they want it.” Yet you can tell Mitchell is proud of the artworks which people have taken to heart: he was pleased to hear of a fashion show being held in front of the Minut Men in Salford, and recounts that Salford students defended the figures from attack by rivals from Manchester University. He even tells a story of tenants taking it upon themselves to clean one of his artworks in a council block. Mitchell also considers his fantastical creatures for the water gardens in Harlow, Essex – modern day gargoyles for a new town – to be a success. Too often, he says, artworks of the period were “thought of as brooches to stick on the building”, whereas art needs to “give a sense of the international, community and place”. Harlow, he thinks, was different as “they were starting to put an infrastructure in, an environment”.

Mitchell would like to see a percentage for public art built into new developments today: “I think it's appalling architects don't consider art. It is so categorised today, art and architecture. There isn't any interrelationship to my mind. At one time there was the possibility of an integrated art form but now you don't get anything like that.

“Every square inch in London is built up as far as ground level. Architecturally, buildings take no notice of the pedestrian. Where the building hits the ground is more like the basement than a public thoroughfare.”

Today, some of Mitchell's works have already been demolished, whereas others are in buildings that have fallen out of favour and face uncertain futures. He's stoical about artworks being lost when buildings are knocked down, although he thinks it's important that “some are kept to give an idea of what the time was like and the type of things you could do”. The social and historical significance of these remarkable artworks is now being reassessed. In Islington, London in 2008, one of Mitchell's works for a school was the first mural of its kind to be listed in its own right, not in the context of the listing of the building to which it was attached. In a library in Kirkby near Liverpool too, a mural has recently been restored and reinstalled. It had languished in storage after the library, ironically, “took it down to be modern”. Those trying (unsuccessfully so far) to get the Turnpike Centre in Leigh listed, which, when it was opened in 1971 featured a new, open-plan library design, also highlight Mitchell's distinctive concrete frieze on the front.

Mitchell still receives requests to undertake commissions, mainly from the Far East, where he says "the money is". He is currently working on a book, which will be “part instruction book” (“always paint the concrete”, he insists) and “part adventure book”. There couldn't be anything more appropriate for this brilliant artist. As he sums up his long career, “It has been an adventure! I was a person of my time. Nowadays I'd be put in a box!"

* Rumour has it that some of the moulds still hang in the Modernist bungalow built by the Allerton Building's architect John Parkinson Whittle in Didsbury as his family home.

For photos and more information about the works discussed above visit Mitchell's extensive website at www.william-mitchell.com.

If you want to find out more

A Pathe Newsreel of Mitchell at work in 1960:

CEMENT MURALS

An essay by Dawn Pereira, who has been researching public art commissioned by the London County Council at the University of East London, on Mitchell's legacy

A resource which provides a fascinating introduction into the influence of art on town planning in post-war Britain, with an overview of the Festival of Britain, new towns, housing, comprehensive education etc

Jonathan Schofield on concrete public art in Manchester

the modernist magazine and other news

the modernist is a new, quarterly magazine for lovers of modernism, published by Manchester Modernist Society. Whilst it leans towards architecture and design, primarily in the North West, I was asked to write an article about the constructed language Esperanto, which shares many of modernism's ideals. The article came about following a chance discussion about encountering a strange, early to mid twentieth century young people's magazine (published in Manchester) in the National Co-operative Archive called Our Circle which was so enthused by a Esperanto and its possibilities for fostering international freedom and contributing to world peace and universal brotherhood that it published stories, lessons and correspondence from its readers in Esperanto.

The theme of the first issue is 'bold', and other contributions include: a foreword by Jonathan Meades; Blackburn market; Aidan Turner-Bishop on cooling towers; Richard Brook on an iconic logo; Dr Steve Millington on the Mancunian Way; Matthew Whitfield on the 1965 plan for Liverpool; David Oates' photos of Oscar Niemeyer's Brazil; Eddy Rhead on tripe restaurants; Stephen Hale on mods; and news and reviews.

the modernist will be launched at CUBE gallery on Thursday June 23 from 6.30-8.30pm, with wine!

Issues cost just £3.75 — or £15 for a subscription (including postage).

It is available from Cornerhouse bookshop in Manchester, Aye-Aye books in Glasgow, News from Nowhere in Liverpool and Do You Read Me in Berlin and can be purchased online here.

Read more about it at www.the-modernist-mag.co.uk.

Read it online here:

Open publication - Free publishing - More architecture

In other news:

Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention went really well. Thanks to everyone who came and browsed, helped sell out Deerly Beloved Bakery's stall, ran and took part in lino-cutting and embroidery and fanzine-making workshops and watched the film and spoke and listened. There are a few write-ups floating around, as well as lots of photos taken by Alex Zamora from Fever Zine here, and there are some more photos here and here and here. Maybe there will be something similar next year...

More news:

Hayley Flynn nominated The Shrieking Violet in the monthly blog section of Blank Pages, Blank Media's magazine, which meant I had to write about my blogging experience then nominate a blog (my choice was not very imaginative!).

Read it here:

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Open publication - Free publishing - More art

Rotherham Zine Library asked me to do an interview about The Shrieking Violet fanzine! Read it here.

Manchester's Modernist Heroines — publication and events

Manchester Modernist Society, The LRM (Loiterers Resistance Movement) and The Shrieking Violet have teamed up for a collaborative project exploring the stories of ten fabulous North West women spanning the fields of invention, aviation, media, science,geography, design and architecture throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty first. Manchester’s feminist history did not stop with the Suffragettes!

Anyone (please note: these are not women only events!) is welcome to join us on Sunday March 6 at the Town Hall in the Women of Achievement room from 1-4pm for your free copy of 'Manchester's Modernist Heroines’. Manchester's Modernist Heroines is a special edition of the Shrieking Violet fanzine (with a cover beautifully stitched and collaged by Rosa Martyn, who studies Hand embroidery at the Royal College of Needlework) which aims to commemorate their achievements, uncover many more via your own favourites, and who knows – inspire some heroines of tomorrow. An exciting range of contemporary Manchester women – ranging from artists and writers to tour guides and even a dance troupe! – has responded to the ten women, and the results include essays, interviews, poetry, planned events and artworks.

The publication can also be read online here:

Open publication - Free publishing - More the lrm

Or downloaded and printed here.

At 3pm on Sunday March 6 The LRM will be curating a walk inspired by the work of Modernist Heroine Professor Doreen Massey focusing on flow, energy, gender and exploring space. The wander will uncover some of the hidden histories and power relationships which have shaped the city; Manchester is made up of myriad stories and some about our marvellous modernist heroines are absent from the official narrative.

This is the start of an ongoing project; please tell us about your heroines on the day or add them directly to a special Modernist Heroines page on the Modernist Society website.

Modernist heroines — a collaborative callout, women we need you!

The Shrieking Violet is delighted to be teaming up with Manchester Modernist Society and the Loiterers Resistance Movement to invite you to join us in a collaborative project promoting a century of Modernist women to coincide with the hundredth birthday celebrations of International Women's Day on March 8.

We are currently looking for expressions of interest around the theme of ten fabulous females strongly associated with the North West spanning the fields of invention, aviation, media, science, design and architecture in the twentieth century.

We aim to produce a publication and range of activities centred around the lives and careers of our ten local heroines in early March, and are looking for your creative responses. This can be (but is not limited to) an event, performance, piece of creative writing, interview or journalism. Our only stipulation is that the work be about one of our ten local heroines.

The Manchester Modernist Society exists to raise awareness and appreciation of Modern architecture & the urban environment and related modern art and design, in Manchester and the surrounding region, through walks, talks and creative collaborations.

The ten modernist heroines are:

1. Mitzi Solomon Cunliffe (January 1 1918 – December 30 2006) was an American sculptor who was a long resident in Didsbury. She was most famous for designing the golden trophy in the shape of a theatrical mask that would go on to represent the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and be presented as the BAFTA award. She also designed the mural on the Heaton Park Pumping Station.

2. Winifred Brown, Salfordian Flyer and, in her early 20s, winner of the Kings Cup (air race) in 1930.

3. Rachel Haugh co-established the architectural practice Ian Simpson Associates. She was born and brought up in Manchester and studied at Bath University School of Architecture. She is a founding partner and co-director of Ian Simpson Architects, a design-led architectural practice which was established in 1987 and employs around 50 people in offices in Manchester and London.

4. Susan Sutherland Isaacs (1885–1948) was a Bolton born educational psychologist and psychoanalyst. Educated at Manchester and Cambridge Universities, she published pioneer studies on the intellectual and social development of children and promoted the nursery school movement. For Isaacs developing a child’s independence, which is best achieved through play, was the best way for children to learn and the role of adults and early educators was to guide children's play. She was awarded a CBE in 1948.

5. Marie Stopes (15 October 1880 – 2 October 1958) was a noted palaeobotanist, campaigner for women's rights and pioneer in the field of family planning. She was the first woman member of faculty at Manchester University.

6. Professor Rosalie David is the world's leading expert on Egyptian mummies. She is Director of the Centre for Biomedical and Forensic Egyptology at the University of Manchester and has directed the Manchester Egyptian Mummy Research Project since 1973. This project has pioneered the 'Manchester Method' — the use of medical and scientific techniques to investigate ancient Egyptian mummies to detect evidence of disease and information about everyday life in ancient Egypt. She was the first woman professor in Egyptology in Britain, and the first to receive an OBE in recognition of her services in Egyptology.

7. Olive Shapley, (10 April 1910– 13 March 1999) was a British radio producer and broadcaster. In 1934 she began her career with the BBC as Children's Hour organiser with the responsibility of producing five hour-long programmes every week. These included at least two full-length live plays a week. After the war she became the third presenter of ‘Woman's Hour’, a programme with which she was associated for over twenty years, producing the programme between 1949 and 1953. Meanwhile, she began to develop a career as a presenter in the new television medium. In the mid-1960s her Manchester home became a refuge (as a charitable trust) for single mothers and later, in the late 1970s, for Vietnamese boat people.

8. Professor Doreen Massey is a Manchester born contemporary British social scientist and geographer. She has devoted her life to the subject, speaking passionately about the significance of geography and the 'politics of place' in a globalised world. Her work has had a profound influence on theorising around space and place and has taken the study of geography into new inter-disciplinary directions.

9. Mary Stott (18 July 1907 – 16 September 2002) was a British feminist and journalist, the first — and longest-serving — editor of the Guardian women's page. One of the great campaigning journalists of the 20th century, in her 15-year tenure from 1957 to 1972 she invented a platform for women's voices and concerns and used it to further such causes.

10. Linder Sterling studied graphic design at the Manchester School of Art from 1974-77 and played a vital part in the 1970s punk scene in Manchester, designing graphics for the Buzzcocks, Magazine and Factory Records. She remains a pivotal visual artist, performance artist and musician, whose work has been selected for the Tate Triennial.

Deadline for expression of interest is Friday 28 January — simply indicate your chosen Heroine and an outline of the type of work likely to be submitted.

Deadlines for final submission of work is Friday 18 February, to allow print and publicity in time for our March event on Sunday 6 March.

Please email info@manchestermodernistsociety.org in the first instance with your choice of Fabulous Female and a short summary of the idea you might wish to pursue.

Please pass the details onto anyone you think might be interested.

The Shrieking Violet and Manchester Modernist Society joint event — Newspapers on Film, Saturday December 11

Newspapers on film

Saturday 11th December, 3.30pm-6.30pm

Manchester Modernist Society HQ, 142 Chapel Street, Salford M3 6AF

Free

The Shrieking Violet fanzine and Manchester Modernist Society invite you to a seasonal gathering celebrating Manchester's media heritage through documentaries from the North West Film Archive.

There will also be some baked goods from recipes which have appeared in past issues of the Shrieking Violet fanzine — expect shortbread, sloe gin, grape vodka, tea and an edible, highly glittered Daily Express building.

Showing

People and Places Around Ordsall

Salford newsagent, amateur filmmaker and onetime newspaper delivery boy Ralph Brookes documented the changing face of the inner city area Ordsall in the 1960s and ‘70s, making over ninety home movies about the community around him, documenting everything from his home, family, birthdays and Christmas to mingling with the stars for an episode of Coronation Street which was filmed in the local park.

Here is the News

Colourful, jaunty, jazz-soundtracked film about how the Evening News is produced. Made in 1968 to celebrate the newspaper's centenary, the film shows the 'daily miracle' that is producing a newspaper, from visiting the various departments in the newspaper offices to distributing copies around the city to be read in suburban family homes.

News Story

A day in the life of the famous Guardian newspaper in 1960 (four years before it moved to London), from meeting the journalists in the various departments which put it together to printing with linotype and hot lead and its distribution around the country.

The event accompanies a media themed special of Manchester-based fanzine The Shrieking Violet which looks at various aspects of Manchester and the media — including Jack Hale of Manchester Modernist Society writing in praise of the innovative Daily Express building on Great Ancoats Street. The films in the North West film archive help give a sense not just of the labour and space intensive process that traditionally went into making newspapers, pre-digitisation, and the buildings in which they were made, but also illustrate the importance of newspapers in the city. The films, which each last around twenty minutes, provide fascinating insights into the time in which they were made: Here is the News is an optimistic look at the modernist city in the swinging sixties, whereas People and Places in Ordsall depicts the other side of life in the region, and the great changes Salford was undergoing at the time as part of slum clearance programmes.

Poster by Lauren Velvick.

www.manchestermodernistsociety.org/

Here's the edible Express Building — shortbread topped with readymade black icing from the Arndale Market, into which was embedded many silver balls. Sprinkled with black edible glitter.

Issue Three of the Shrieking Violet

Issue 3 of the Shrieking Violet is out today (it can be collected from the usual places - see previous postings!). There is a slight Autumn/ public art/ student/ university theme.

It features a cartoon by the multi-talented Rob Taylor (who also plays music under the name Sparky Deathcap), my piece on gargoyles in tiny print (it turned out to be much longer than I realised!), Jim Waterson on the demise of football terraces, Victoria Conway on females in comedy, an evocative piece on street collection boxes by Morag Rose, a short story and artwork by Lizzy Huthwaite, an article on murals and mosaics in Manchester by Manchester Modernist Society's wonderful E.P. Niblock, recipes by Rachel Cranshaw and Rebecca Wilmott and listings, plus illustrations by Alex Boswell and Fiona Bratherton.

The front cover was designed by Alex Boswell.

The self-assembly PDF version can be downloaded here.

To request a copy/ contribute, email Natalie.Rose.Bradbury@googlemail.com.

The new issue of the Shrieking Violet has definitely been overshadowed by the discovery there is a new issue of Belle Vue out, though. The first issue, which came out last year, was the best fanzine I've ever read and a big influence on The Shrieking Violet. The new issue contains articles by E.P. Niblock and Richard Barrett and can be found in Piccadilly Records and the Cornerhouse bookshop.

Open publication - Free publishing - More violet

Manchester Modernist Society

From a grubby concrete wall hidden behind scrawny trees to a shabby former council building turned into a giant advertising hoarding, all across Manchester are iconic pieces of the city's fabric laying neglected and forlorn. Otherwise known as the Holloway sculptural wall on London Road, built in 1968 as a sound-buffer yet an artwork in its own right, and the former Unemployment and Benefits Office on Aytoun Street, these are just some of Manchester’s hidden treasures that we walk past on a daily basis.

Whilst to some these buildings rank amongst outdated eyesores that should be pulled down as soon as possible, many regard them fondly as a vital part of their personal experiences of the city.

Manchester Modernist Society was formed in April by Maureen Ward and Jack Hale, two Manchester enthusiasts, to inspire people to look again at the buildings which, while not necessarily beautiful in a conventional sense, are central to our cityscape.

The pair, who are members of the Twentieth Century Society, the organisation which campaigns to protect the architectural heritage of the last century, acknowledges there are already a lot of fragmented groups that look at how we relate to the city, but wants to encourage them to work together.

Maureen said: “Lots of really interesting things exist relating to how we live in the city in a variety of ways, but often they don’t know about the others. People are coming at the city from all sorts of different angles trying to do the same thing - CUBE, flâneurs, the Loiterers Resistance Movement, the North West branch of the Twentieth Century Society We wanted to get together with likeminded people who could give us ideas we hadn’t thought of.”

As the first modern city, Manchester is choc a bloc with modern buildings, which for the society's purposes are those built between 1914 and 1999. This encompasses a lot of different architectural styles and movements, from 30s Art Deco to 60s Brutalism.

We all know Manchester is renowned for its Victorian and Edwardian architecture - think about the attention conferred on buildings like Gorton Monastery and Victoria Baths, as well as its mills - but what about those buildings that get on with it quietly in the background, minding their own business? While often not as ostentatiously flashy as the grand redbrick Victorian buildings, they have a beauty all of their own.

Maureen said: “We‘re proud of the Victorian city but the modern city developed in a totally different way to the Victorian and Georgian cities. It’s based around cars and roadways, movement and speed and that’s reflected in the design.”

She continued: “Manchester is a really modern city - so modern it doesn’t seem to care about its history. It’s in love with the future but it thinks it’s good to remember the past. The city has no history of itself if it’s always changing.”

Maureen enthused: “I wanted to spend my tiny free time saving the city from itself. We share a real concern about our recent past and our place in the future of the city. We live in the city and it forms us, so us and the city are tied to each other.”

She continued: “Manchester is so in awe of the image it has of itself post bomb. It’s very glossy and glamorous but a lot of people are worried it isn’t really for them. We’re often interested in beleaguered buildings.”

Jack added: “We’re interested in the curious, hidden and quirky bits too.”

Often deserted, Manchester’s modernist icons are neglected and left to rot, until they’re torn down to make way for the new city of glass that’s taking over Manchester, street by street, turning it into something shiny and homogenous yet sometimes cheaply built. Jack said: “It’s expensive to use old buildings in a modern way - it’s cheaper to build new ones than to modernise 1930s buildings”.

Maureen added: “I’m not convinced we’re building really excellent new architecture. Often, new buildings look as if they’ve been wrapped in tinfoil.”

Tearing down these buildings often rips out a page from the city’s history. Maureen said: “The whole of the twentieth century is gone now. Modernism means a lot of different things to different people but the vernacular is fast disappearing without really being documented - we are trying to find people who are documenting it.”

Jack, a freelance arts project facilitator and fundraiser who has spent time working at CUBE, said: “I’m an urbanist. I’m not interested in the country or medieval churches, but I’m interested in recent history. It’s a part of our architectural heritage that needs caring for so we’re doing it ourselves.”

Maureen, who has an academic background in archaeology, agreed: “Our architectural heritage shows what we were. For example, the New Century Hall had a ballroom and scooter boys used to meet there. I’m interested in old cafes as well, and meeting places.” For example, pre-1967 cafes became spaces where gay men could meet when homosexuality was still illegal.

That’s what the buildings of modern Manchester capture - its recent history, from old cinemas to tower blocks and council estates. As Maureen says, they show the ‘machinery of how the city works'.

Two buildings stand out for the pair as epitomising the society’s fasincation with modernist architecture. Maureen said: “I’m obsessed with the UBO office and have been for years. It’s magnificent in a peculiar way but it’s increasingly being surrounded by very tawdry modern buildings and its beauty is becoming very obvious.”

Jack singled out the Daily Express building on Great Ancoats Street as ’unique’ in Manchester, saying: “I love the fact it’s one of only three of its kind built. The black glass they used has become very common since the 1930s but then it was radical. A successful building has to work as a building and be beautiful as well. The Express building is a great example as you could see the factory printing machines through it, the massive newspapers going on big conveyor belts.”

He elaborated: “Disappearing buildings are often part of what we’re proud of. Buildings aren’t very interesting by themselves - it’s about what they represent and what goes on in them. The Daily Express building was part of an alternative Fleet Street.”

Maureen agreed: “Manchester was the setting of lots of firsts - what are we first in now?”

Unfortunately, few of these buildings survive in their original purpose - the Express Building for one is now flats and offices. Lutyens’ magnificent former Midland Bank on King Street, built in the 1930s, is lying empty, having trouble finding someone to give it a new use, and the Coop is moving out of the CIS tower to a new, purpose built premises. Manchester University wants to sell off the former UMIST campus, home to many innovative buildings such as the Faraday Building - many students at the university are unaware North Campus even exists - and students will cease to study at the affectionately named Toast Rack in Fallowfield by 2010. Moberly Hall, the former refectory building, which Maureen praises for its 'lovely angles', is already on its way out.

The Manchester Modernist Society’s love of the mark modernism made on our city goes far beyond buildings, however, encompassing design classics such as the K8 Telephone Kiosk. Maureen said: “There are only four of them left in Manchester now as we don’t use payphones anymore. They are listed buildings but they’re in a terrible state. It’s sad.”

Their passion even extends to Manchester’s own Highway in the Sky, the Mancunian Way, with its flyovers and roads into nowhere, a built monument to utopianism and post war optimismMaureen explained: “There’s lots of interesting bits of history that aren’t buildings too. For example, the Holloway Wall, which is rather forlorn now.”
The society acknowledges it may not be able to save the buildings that are already condemned to be replaced, but hopes to raise awareness of them before they go forever through specially commissioned artwork and screenings of old films. There will also be talks and debates, walks and social events such as outings to other cities.

Maureen cautioned: “There will be virtually nothing left if we’re not careful. People always do just want to pull things down that we now think are national treasures. The city council thought they could sell or get rid of buildings on the quiet but we’re acting as their voice. We need to get together into a critical mass to try to save them.”

She concluded: “Even if we can’t save buildings, we’d like to have a celebration before they go.”

http://www.manchestermodernistsociety.org/

Join the facebook group here.

The CUBE website has a brilliant guide to Manchester's buildings, broken down into area/ theme/ architect, with an extensive building by building guide to its modernist architecture.

Manchester Confidential has often sung the praises of modernist buildings too, from the Holloway Wall to the UBO.