1 Year of Modernist HQ
We can’t quite believe it, but it’s been a year since we opened our HQ in Manchester’s Northern Quarter. So much has happened over the last 12 months, exhibitions, events, the establishment of a reading room, copies Campari, a dog chewing our stairs, and that’s just for starters. As our devoted followers you will of course remember that we launched with a retrospective exhibition of the last decade of The Modernist magazine. So today, our blog post looks back at that exhibition, which opened to the public on 2nd May 2019.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
From Our Archives was the first exhibition in The Modernist Society’s new dedicated exhibition space at 58, Port Street. As 2019 was the 10th anniversary of the formation of the society, this exhibition featured some of the team’s favourite items from the organisation’s project archive.
A residency at Manchester’s ‘Toastrack’ unearthed original blueprints as well as photographs of staff and students dating back to its early days as the ‘Domestic and Trades College’ with fashion shoots on the roof and butchering courses in the kitchens.
A long standing love affair with the UMIST Campus led the Society to unilaterally declare it as a Conservation Area in 2012. The Society became ‘uninvited artists in residence’ at the Campus and after awarding ‘degrees’ from their own Modernist University they designed and planted plaques and created a map to honour the very best cluster of 1960s architecture in the city.
In 2011 the team came up with a daft idea of publishing a magazine. Thirty issues, five designers and hundreds of contributors later, all the issues of the modernist magazine were on displayed, and you were all asking to buy Issue 1, which wasn’t possible, until… now
Stretford House 50
Last year our good friend (and modernist lifetime member) Bill Mather came to us with the idea of celebrating his local tower block. We love anything that’s a bit niche, but Stretford House is more than just a tower block, it has become an icon of the Greater Manchester sky-scape. It’s 240 feet high, it has 23 floors, 88 flats with 2 bedrooms, 44 flats with 1 bedroom, two lifts servicing odd and even floors, and one stairwell. To celebrate its 50th anniversary we held an exhibition ‘Streford House 50’, and displayed archival photographs and footage which had been unearthed by Bill in the Stretford Local History Society’s Archives. Alongside this we released a publication, and we even did a tea-towel.
“Standing as a single solitary obelisk of hard concrete surrounded by softer sediments, the 23 storey high-rise residential block Stretford House has for fifty years acted as Stretford’s very own security guard. Scanning the busy skyline for planes at Ringway Airport, gazing over the ever meandering River Mersey flood plain, manning the historical border post between Lancashire and Cheshire, surveying the scene with its feet firmly planted in Triassic Sandstone as it watches for invaders from space with the help of Bernard Lovell’s radio telescope at Jodrell Bank, which is visible on the horizon.”
Stretford House 50 publication by Bill Mather, and designed by Wayne Fearnley
the modernist gallery and shop is now open
The Modernist Society have opened our very own gallery and shop at 58 Port Street Manchester
Why? Because we were frustrated by the lack of non commercial gallery space in Manchester where we could put on our own exhibitions - so we decided to open our own.
On the ground floor we shall also host some of our smaller scale indoor events such as launches, talks and film showings. As well as that it will also act as a shop, where you will not only be able to pick up something from our own range of publications and products but also we will carry a specially selected range of other cool products and publications that we like and that hopefully you will like too.
From Our Archives is the first exhibition in The Modernist Society’s new dedicated exhibition space at 58, Port Street. As 2019 is the 10th anniversery of the formation of the society, this exhibition features some of the team’s favourite items from the organisation’s project archive.
A residency at Manchester’s ‘Toastrack’ unearthed original blueprints as well as photographs of staff and students dating back to its early days as the ‘Domestic and Trades College’ with fashion shoots on the roof and butchering courses in the kitchens.
A long standing love affair with the UMIST Campus led the Society to unilaterally declare it as a Conservation Area in 2012. The Society became ‘uninvited artists in residence’ at the Campus and after awarding ‘degrees’ from their own Modernist University they designed and planted plaques and created a map to honour the very best cluster of 1960s architecture in the city.
In 2011 the team came up with a daft idea of publishing a magazine. Thirty issues, five designers and hudreds of contributors later, all the issues of the modernist magazine will be on display but please don’t ask to buy issue number one.
These and a many other artefacts will be on display alongside a limited number of very special items for sale from the modernist shop.
Open Wednesday to Saturday. 11am-5pm
Subscribe and receive each quarterly issue at a reduced price.
adventures...
Its a travel magazine of sorts.. Out now.
the shop
In our online shop you can buy back issues as well as our other publications and some other of Modernist goodies.. have a look.
fresh tweets
new events
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