The Culture of Manchester is notable artistically, architecturally, theatrically and musically. Despite being the 5th largest city in the United Kingdom by population and the second largest conurbation, Manchester has been ranked as the second city of the United Kingdom in numerous polls since the 2000s (decade), with an influential culture scene helping to elevate Manchester's importance in the national psyche. This has helped the city's population grow by 20% in the last decade, and made the universities the most popular choices for undergraduate admission.
20th century broadcaster and social commentator Brian Redhead once said "Manchester ... is the capital, in every sense, of the North of England, where the modern world was born. The people know their geography is without equal. Their history is their response to it". Whilst Ian Brown of the Stone Roses has previously said that "Manchester has everything except a beach".
Often cited as the world's first industrialised city, with little pre-factory history to speak of, Manchester is the third most visited city in the United Kingdom after London and Edinburgh and is a major centre of the creative industries.
Art and art galleries
The Art Treasures of Great Britain was an exhibition of fine art held in Manchester from 5 May to 17 October 1857.Exhibition of art treasures of the United Kingdom, held at Manchester in 1857. Report of the executive committee, 1859. Many details in this article are taken from this comprehensive record of the exhibition. It remains the largest art exhibition to be held in the UK,Art Treasures in Manchester: 150 years on , Manchester Art Gallery possibly in the world,Art Treasures Exhibition Returns To Manchester After 150 Years , Culture24, 5 October 2007 with over 16,000 works on display. It attracted over 1.3 million visitors in the 142 days it was open, about four times the population of Manchester at that time, with many visiting on organised railway excursions. Its selection and display of artworks had a formative influence on the public art collections which were being established in the UK at the time, such as the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
There are several art galleries in Manchester, notably: Manchester Art Gallery Whitworth Art Gallery Esea contemporary Home Castlefield Gallery Urbis
The municipally owned Manchester Art Gallery on Mosley Street houses extensive displays of paintings by Italian and Flemish masters, as well as a notable collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings, including works by Ford Madox Brown, Holman Hunt and Rossetti. A major Pre-Raphaelite work, The Manchester Murals, is a series of twelve paintings on the history of Manchester by Ford Madox Brown which were commissioned for the Great Hall of Manchester Town Hall in 1879. The Great Hall is open to the public, except during private functions.
Manchester's importance in the textile industry is reflected in the collections in the Whitworth Art Gallery, which also displays modern art and sculpture, including works by Epstein, Hepworth, van Gogh and Picasso.
Other exhibition spaces and museums in Manchester include the Smolensky Gallery, and the Manchester Costume Gallery at Platt Fields Park. The gallery at Fletcher Moss Botanical Garden in Didsbury has now closed.
Home was opened in 2015 as a merger of the exhibitions and cinemas in Cornerhouse, and the Library Theatre Company. It hosts exhibitions of both local and international art, including the biennial Manchester Open Exhibition.
The works of Stretford-born painter L. S. Lowry, known for his "matchstick" paintings of industrial Manchester and Salford, can be seen in both the Manchester Art Gallery and the Whitworth Art Gallery, and the Lowry art centre in Salford Quays (in the neighbouring borough of Salford) devotes a large permanent exhibition to his works. The French Impressionist painter Adolphe Valette spent a period of his life in Manchester and painted local scenes.Mark Brown "Exhibition for 'Monet of Manchester' who inspired Lowry" , The Guardian, 14 October 2011 The Irish sculptor John Cassidy worked in Manchester for most of his life and produced many fine works of sculpture. The Turner Prize-winning artist Chris Ofili hails from Manchester.
Architecture
The architecture of Manchester demonstrates a wide variety of architectural styles, from early 19th century Neoclassical and Victorian through to the most modern. Much of the architecture in the city harks back to its former days as a global centre for the cotton trade. Many warehouses have now been converted for other uses but the external appearance remains mostly unchanged so the city keeps much of its original character. An interesting facet of the architecture of Manchester and several other cities which underwent a construction boom during the Industrial Revolution is that inspiration was taken from Venice. Examples of this architecture can be easily found to the south and east of Albert Square and near the 92nd lock of the Bridgewater Canal, near the Beetham Tower.
Manchester also has a number of skyscrapers. Most were built during the 1960s and 1970s. However, in the 21st century, there has been a renewed interest in building skyscrapers in Manchester. Numerous residential and office blocks are being built or have recently been built in the city centre. The Beetham Tower was completed in the autumn of 2006 and houses a Hilton hotel along with a restaurant and residential properties. It was the tallest building in the UK outside London until November 2018, when it was surpassed by the South Tower at Deansgate Square, which is tall.
Museums
Museums in Manchester include: Manchester Jewish Museum Manchester Museum Science and Industry Museum, an Anchor Point of ERIH (European Route of Industrial Heritage) Manchester Museum of Transport National Football Museum Pankhurst Centre People's History Museum Gallery of Costume Heaton Hall
Manchester Museum opened to the public in 1888, has notable collections in archaeology, particularly Egyptology, and in natural history, particularly in botany, entomology and palaeontology.
In the Castlefield district, a reconstructed part of the Roman fort of Mamucium is open to the public in Castlefield. Manchester's rich industrial heritage is celebrated in the Science and Industry Museum, also in Castlefield. This large collection of steam locomotives, working machines from the Industrial Revolution, aircraft and space vehicles is appropriately housed in the former Liverpool Road railway station, the terminus of the world's first passenger railway. Transport heritage in Manchester is also presented in the Museum of Transport in Cheetham Hill. Salford Quays, a short distance from the city centre in the adjoining borough of Trafford, is home to Imperial War Museum North.
Other museums in Manchester reflect the history of the city's people; the People's History Museum presents the history of the work and politics in the city, commemorating the Peterloo Massacre, and Manchester's strong association with the Trade union movement, Women's suffrage and football.
Manchester, being situated in the North West England is also a hugely popular footballing city and its football past is remembered at the home stadiums of the cities' Premier League clubs, Manchester City and Manchester United. Both have museums at the City of Manchester Stadium and Old Trafford football stadium.
Furthermore, the National Football Museum is moving to Urbis in Manchester city centre and will become its new permanent home. The move to Manchester is aimed at maximising the museum's visitor rates - it is predicted the move will boost visitor rate fourhold to 400,000 rather the 100,000 annual visitors at its previous home in Preston. The new National Football Museum is due to open in late 2011.
In Cheetham Hill, the Manchester Jewish Museum tells the story of the Jewish community in Manchester from the Industrial Revolution to the present day.
Music In Elizabethan times the Court Leet of the manor of Manchester appointed town waits to undertake certain duties, one of which was of "playing morning and evening together, according as others have been heretofore accustomed to do". In 1603 they welcomed into their company a more skilful musician and it was then ordered that "the said waits shall hereafter be received to play music at all and every wedding and dinners in this town".Frangopulo, N. (ed.) (1962) Rich Inheritance: a guide to the history of Manchester. Manchester: Education Committee of the City Council; p. 29
In 1918 the Education Committee appointed a Music Adviser to the schools of the city who encouraged the formation of school choirs and orchestras and the teaching of musical appreciation and the playing of instruments.Frangopulo, N. (ed.) (1962) Rich Inheritance: a guide to the history of Manchester. Manchester: Education Committee of the City Council; p. 98
According to C.H. Herford (writing in 1915): "Music has been said to divide with Mammon the devotion of the people of Manchester. Possibly this sets their musical enthusiasm too high; but music has some chance of being that one of the fine arts to which her climate is least unkind."McKechnie, H. M., ed. (1915) Manchester in Nineteen Hundred and Fifteen. Manchester: University Press; p. 102
Classical music
Manchester has two symphony orchestras, the Hallé and the BBC Philharmonic. There is also a chamber orchestra, the Manchester Camerata, and the Gorton Philharmonic Orchestra, an amateur orchestra founded in 1854. In the 1950s, the city was home to the so-called 'Manchester School' of classical composers, which comprised Harrison Birtwistle, Peter Maxwell Davies, David Ellis and Alexander Goehr. Manchester is a centre for musical education, with the Royal Northern College of Music and Chetham's School of Music. Forerunners of the RNCM were the Northern School of Music (founded 1920) and the Royal Manchester College of Music (founded 1893). The Gentlemen's Concerts were begun in the year 1765 by a group of amateurs who ten years later built their own Concert Rooms on Fountain Street with space for an audience of 900.Frangopulo, N. (ed.) (1962) Rich Inheritance: a guide to the history of Manchester. Manchester: Education Committee of the City Council; p. 38 The name of Concert Lane is derived from this building. A later venue for these concerts was in Lower Mosley Street (on the site of the present Midland Hotel).Wyke, Terry & Rudyard, Nigel (1994) Manchester Theatres. Manchester: Bibliography of North West England; p. 78 (Ordnance Survey map of 1889 showing Concert Hall and People's Concert Hall in Lower Mosley Street)