The Civil Justice Centre: Vision of a brave new Manchester

Written by Aidan O'Rourke
2006-12-29

It has been a few years in the making, but a building that is now in its final stages on the western side of Spinningfields, close to the River Irwell, looks to be one of the most radical and groundbreaking pieces of modern architecture to appear in Manchester for many years.

The Manchester Civil Justice Centre is designed by Australian architects Denton Corker Marshall, working in partnership with other companies and government bodies.

As a committed observer of architecture, but with no architectural qualifications or experience, the perspective of Eye On Manchester is from street level, just another pair of eyes on the street, though perhaps a little more curious than most.

Here's what I've observed about this startling new building:

It's big - not as tall as the Beetham Tower, but if you cut it in half and place one half on top of the other, it would be taller. The height is 270 feet (90m).

It has features I have never seen on a building before: sections that jut out in mid air and hange there like the open drawers of a filing cabinet, a wall of metal grilles on the east facade that look like sunshades on a middle eastern building.

There is a vast glass wall on the west facade with an atrium that rises up practically to the full height of the building.

The glass wall is extended outwards at the sides, forming a double layer of glass jutting into the air. I don't think the architects had to do this, but they did.

The exterior material has a dark metallic sheen, like a giant piece of electronic hardware. There's not a badly fitted terracotta tile anywhere in sight.

Inside the vast curtain wall of glass, there are rooms, called 'pods', inserted at various floor levels, each one a different size and colour, in the style of a Mondrian painting.

It is an eccentric building in many respects. The exterior pods of of higgledy piggledy shape and size.The building has a science fiction quality to it, like something out of a book of fantastic buildings that never got built, but this one did.

But despite the entertaining design, the purpose of the building is deadly serious. Here, justice will be meted out, within the framework of the British legal system. It belongs to the United Kingdom and to the city. On the Bridge Street entrance is a giant coat of arms with the words 'Manchester Civil Justice Centre'.

The building is in a prominent location and is unmissable. You can practically see into the rooms. The legal process won't be hidden away behind forbidding facades, but open and visible.

I know that some people may think the protruding bits look like Portakabins stacked on top of each other, and others may not appreciate the aesthetic qualities of a 250 square foot wall of glass.

But in the opinion of Eye On Manchester, the Manchester Civil Justice Centre is the most important and impressive piece of modern architecture to appear in Manchester for decades.

It's superior in design and concept to the Beetham Hilton Tower, and I don't think that architect Ian Simpson would disagree. The Hilton Tower was a building done quickly on a limited budget. The Civil Justice Centre has been constructed slowly, on what looks like a massive budget.

Standing next to the Manchester Crown Courts, the Civil Justice Centre will fulfil the promise of creating a fitting centrepiece for Manchester's legal quarter, as envisioned by the city fathers in the 1945 plan for Manchester.

But what would their verdict be if they could look into the future and see the building that has appeared there today?