1960s architecture: unloved, unwanted, unwelcome. Buildings that gave architecture a bad name. Actually those brutalist concrete monsters that so disfigured our cities (The Shambles, Lowry House) mostly went up in the 70s. The 60s was a decade of daring design, even if the philistine Manchester planners are taking them down before our eyes. So let’s give praise to Quay House and what’s left of Manchester House, and worship at the foot of the Renold Building.
The atom bomb is hot news right now, thanks to this summer’s big blockbuster film, Oppenheimer, named after J. Robert Oppenheimer, organiser of the Manhattan Project which dropped the bombs on Japan in 1945.
Ed Glinert of New Manchester Walks, who has hosted countless local tours that include stopping at the atomic bunker on Chinatown’s George Street, and gives talks on the story of the atom bomb on cruise ships, relates the full atomic story to coincide with the release of the film and as the 78th anniversary of the dropping of the bombs in August 1945 to end the Second World War approaches.
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