Manchester Municipal Technical School (Architectural Competition)

TWENTY-SIX sets of designs were received in the Manchester Technical School Competition, and these have been carefully gone through by Mr. Alfred Waterhouse, R.A., and a selection made. Mr. Waterhouse afterwards inspected the designs, in company with the Technical Instruction Committee, and the designs, which were considered to be entitled to the first, second, third and fourth premiums, were finally fixed upon. Until, however, the ratification of this selection is made by the City Council, which we understand will be next week, the sealed envelopes containing the names of the authors of the selected designs will not be opened. It is to be hoped the secrecy thus enjoined will be duly observed, and not, as in more than one case lately, be simply a travesty of it. It may be of interest to note in connection with the competition that the Technical Instruction Committee have adopted the following definition of the aims of the Technical School and of its relations with other institutions:—" The principal objects of the Municipal Technical School is to provide instruction in the principles of those sciences which bear directly or in- directly upon our trades and industries, and to shew by experimental work how those principles may be applied to their advancement. The aim of the school is distinct from that of the University colleges, inasmuch as it is designed to teach science solely with a view to its industrial and commercial applications, and not for the purpose of educating professional scientific men. It, however, offers to students of the University colleges the opportunity of technical instruction in the industrial application of certain branches of science. The Technical School requires that its day students must possess, on entrance, a sound general education, and it must therefore look for its supply of suitably prepared students to the grammar schools and other secondary schools, and to the higher grade elementary schools. The school also provides evening lectures and laboratory and workshop practice for apprentices, journey- men, and foremen in the scientific principles underlying their respective trades and industries, and especially aims to bring to their knowledge newly discovered pro- cesses and methods for the purpose of improving any special trade or of introducing new branches of industry." [The British Architect 2 September 2, 1892 page 167]

The Manchester Municipal Technical School Competition has been decided as follows:—1st premium, of £200, to Messrs. Spalding & Cross, of 15, Queen Street, Cheapside, London; 2nd premium, of £150, to Messrs. Gibson & Russell, of 11, Little Queen Street, Wesminster; 3rd, £100, to Mr. Ernest Runtz, 22, Moorgate Street, London, and Mr. Frederick R. Farrow, 2, New Court, Carey Street, London; and 4th £75 to Mr. Theodore Sington, Oxford Street, Manchester. [British Architect 9 September 1892 page 183-184]

1892                       

Reference           British Architect 16 September 16, 1892 page 202-203

MANCHESTER TECHNICAL SCHOOLS COMPETITION - This important competition has reached a satisfactory termination. It is satisfactory in that a good plan, allied to fairly good exterior treatment, has been adopted, and also satisfactory in that an independent and eminent architect has, we understand, practically settled the awards. We believe there will be no written report forthcoming from Mr. Waterhouse, as he appears to have accompanied the committee on a round of the designs describing to them verbally his estimate of the comparative results. It will doubtless be disappointing to Manchester architects to be ousted from the work, but the consolation remains that one Manchester architect obtains a premium, and that in other local designs considerable ability is displayed, at all events in the matter of plan. The importance of the competition does not lie only in the fact that some £100,000 is to be expended on the building, but in the fact that the winner will be presumably a strong candidate for other similar important undertakings, which are sure to be projected in the present awakening intelligence of the country to this important educational development. We have seen better collections of architectural designs in competitions, but amongst the 26 sets of drawings which, with their many floor plans, must represent some £2,000 worth of architects' money, there is a pretty high average of skill. The site for the new buildings is a good one, being situated on a cross road between London Road and Oxford Road, not much more than a stone's-throw from the London Road Station, and a short walk from the Central and Oxford Road Stations. It is an oblong in shape, and bounded on three sides by streets, and nearly level, the ground falling slightly down to the least important angle, that to Granby Row and Sackville Street. It is proposed to quite cover the site with the building scheme, leaving no room for extension, and being something ahead of immediate necessities, possibly providing for a day attendance of one thousand students. There appears to be only one way of dealing with the site to best advantage, viz.: to make the chief entrance in Sackville Street (the long side of the oblong), to put buildings round each side with sur- rounding corridors, and traverse the central area so left by the museum and examination halls, with other adjuncts. The necessity for good intercommunication between all parts and sections of the building, whilst keeping each section conveniently concentrated—the advantage of making the corridors pleasant and interesting in themselves, containing possibly pictures and small exhibits—the desirability of providing for social functions such as conversazione, or the like, to promote the corporate life of the institution—these seem to be, amongst other points, what architects had to bear in mind. As we hope to illustrate the chief designs, we will not attempt more than a few general notes, and will take first in order that which has earned the envied right to be translated to a reality in the streets of Manchester. The first premium has fallen to Spalding & Cross, of 15, Queen Street, Cheapside, for their drawings lettered O. The design which has won for its authors the first place shows the building with frontages at right angles to each other, and the main entrance placed in the centre of the Sackville Street front, entering through a vestibule (with side stairs on either hand) to the museum hall, which goes back across the site. The main stair- case is opposite the other end of the hall. There are two areas, one each side of the large hall, with open well stairs and conveniences in each angle of the site. The administrative department is to the left of the main entrance. The lecture and examination hall, through the first and second floors, comes over the museum hall on the ground floor, which is thus only 15 ft. high. The qualitative and quantitative laboratories make up the rest of this block on the third-floor level. A good feature in this plan is an excellent reading- room on the first floor over the main entrance, also the kitchen, dining, and tea rooms on the second floor, and the continuous range of various-sized class-rooms on this level. The authors also by their one main entrance claim an efficient plan of registration of all entries of students to the building. The exterior, whilst not being absorbingly interesting, is fairly well balanced and dignified in a sort of Francois Premier Renaissance, and, if the authors would give us a more refined cornice arrangement, and improve on the somewhat awkward combination of curves in the oriel and main entrance, we should like it much better. A good monochrome, tinted view illustrates the exterior, and some most repellent combinations of yellow, red, and green do duty for elevations. The cubical contents of this design are set down at 3,400,000 ft., which, at an average price of 6d. a foot, gives £85,000 as the probable cost, exclusive of all fittings. From the specification we gather the authors propose to build the walls generally of local commons, and the fronts to streets of red Ruabon facing bricks, the dressings to be buff terra-cotta of Edwards', or other approved Ruabon manufacture, the courtyard walls up to the first-floor level with white glazed bricks. The roof covered with small-size green Whitland Abbey slates, and the back roof with blue Bangor; windows to front elevations and museum of best polished plate, and the others 26 oz. sheet; all roof-lights of Hartley's rough plate, and examination hall windows with lead lights in colourless cathedral glass quarries. Fireproof floors throughout, and all floors not needed to be of impervious paving to have 14 inch wood blocks. Staircases of patent concrete construction. Joiners' work throughout, pitch pine and twice varnished, glazed stoneware, pipe drains, with Stanford's patent joints, set in straight lines only, and at every junction an inspection manhole through which drains run in open channels, the whole fixed with automatic flushing tanks. The heating and ventilation are to be by Messrs. Haden, the heating by hot water on the low-pressure system. All the rooms, passages, stairs, and corridors will be heated by direct radiation. In regard to ventilation extraction shafts are arranged with fans worked by electric motion, so as to afford an interchange of air in the building about four times an hour. The second premium goes to Gibson & Russell, 11, Little Queen Street, Westminster, whose plans are marked B. Here the angle formed by Whitworth and Sackville Streets is ignored in the building, by setting back the former front to a line square with the latter. The buildings are arranged so as to have two parallel areas 88 ft. by 42 ft., the examination hall (on the first and second floors) lying between them. The museum hall lies at the angle of the forenamed streets, with its length along Sackville Street, the principal entrance coming into it from Whitworth Street, and the principal stairs ascending from it at the other end, thus coming at the middle of the side, and opposite the end of the ex- amination hall. A continuous corridor is thus formed round this plan on the ground, second, and third floors. One feature of the design is a flat roof with a conservatory in the centre over the examination hall block. The exterior, which shows to most advantage in the somewhat rough pen view, is a simple, sensible and economical arrangement of Renaissance, with good, bold divisions of parts, and nicely designed attic storey above the continuous main cornice. The skyline is agreeably designed with gables, chimneys, and one broad low lantern turret in the centre of the Sackville Street front. The elevations are dreadfully "got up." The third premium falls to Ernest Runtz, 22, Moorgate Street, and Fred. R. Farrow, 2, New Court, Carey Street, lettered S. This plan is laid out with four internal courts, some 65 ft. long by 25 ft. wide. There is an entrance in each street, the main one being in Whitworth Street. The Whitworth Street frontage is made up by a block of building lying parallel to that thoroughfare, through the centre of which is the chief entrance, leading into an exhibition hall, which, with a lecture and examination hall (placed end to end) form a central block of building down the site about 55 ft. wide. A good corridor runs continuously round the whole building, forming excellent inter- communication of parts on every floor. The main stairs and conveniences are placed between the corridors and the central block in the centre of the site. The council room and clerk's office are placed either side of the chief entrance. On the basement floor we find gymnasium and dining and tea rooms, under the examination hall area; and spinning-room and workshops, smithy and moulding shop, under the exhibition hall area. Drawing offices are placed along the Whitworth Street front, whilst laboratory, wood-working lathes and machinery, weaving rooms, designing rooms, printing and com- posing rooms, &c, fill up the floor area almost completely, leaving the light to be largely obtained through windows into the four courts over those parts which are ceiled lower than the rest. Of course, it goes without saying that all the upper floors are well lighted by reason of the well-arranged areas. A large and convenient stairway leads direct from the technical students' entrance in Granby Row to the first floor into the lecture hall, 80ft. by 50 ft., which at its further (platform) end communicates by side doors into the gallery surrounding the exhibition hall. The exterior of this design is well expressed in good proportioned red-brick frontages with stone bands and dressings—in a sensible Georgian type. The centre of the Whitworth Street elevation is occupied by a high gable, crowned by a nice little feature of broken pedimented gablet with corbelled pilasters (which might have been suggested by Mr. Norman Shaw's new Scotland Yard gables). Square-topped pavilion blocks, finished with parapet walls, mark the angles of the site and the middle of the Sackville Street front, whilst octagonal stair projections, crowned at the main cornice level with nice copper domes, mark the junction of the angle blocks as they rise above the main building. We should be inclined to think we must thank the good influence of Norman Shaw for the spirit of this design. It is capitally illustrated by clear, readable plans and coloured elevations. There is no design which, exteriorly, is per- haps its equal in quality and suitability. The fourth premium is awarded to Theodore Sington, 53a, Oxford Street, Manchester. The author of this design (lettered I) boldly gives up a central area of over 160ft. by 100ft., with two stairs in the re-entering angles of Granby Row block, and one stair out from the Whitworth Street block. The main entrance is in the centre of Whitworth Street, administrative office either side of it, and the museum hall, 120 ft. lorg by 30 ft. wide, completing the width of this block. We find continuous corridors on every floor. The exterior of this design is fairly well proportioned, but as uninteresting as is the bulk of Manchester architecture. The Granby Row front is coloured, with a surrounding atmosphere in Payne's grey, we suppose to hint at Manchester atmosphere and the material which is to shine out from it—brick and terra-cotta. Design P is amongst one of the best laid out, and this is somewhat similar to that first premiated, having good light and air and intercommunication. Design M is in many respects a good plan with four internal areas and main entrance from Whitworth Street. Design N has a well-thought-out plan, the ground floor arrangement showing two capital courts with central hall between, and four angle stairs with good connect- ing corridors all round, having oriel projections into the courts at intervals. The intercommunication of parts is not so good as it might be, but this plan could have been, with little alteration, converted into a very good one. Designs T and V have good points. Design C is admirably got up, but fails conspicuously in plan, by having only three sides of a square, without efficient intercommunication and provision for good discipline and oversight. The exterior is an elegant Renaissance type. The whole set of drawings are most creditable. Design W ranks amongst the best in exterior treatment; it is indeed, perhaps the best of all as a matter of design. The plan is admirably laid up, but (without analysing it carefully at all) appears to give far too little accommodation. These drawings are admirably got up. Designs marked E, W, and Z are all noticeable, in fact the latter is, we think, the most characteristic of all. It is a capitally illustrated one, and we should imagine hails from Glasgow—anyhow, from Glasgow traditions. [British Architect 16 September 16, 1892 page 202-203]

1892                       Manchester Technical Schools Competition - First Premiated Design

 The illustrations of this design, which we give in our issue to-day, sufficiently explain themselves without our adding to the descriptive, and other remarks, contained in our article on the premiated designs in our issue of September 16. [British Architect 7 October 1892 page 260 and illustration.]

Reference    British Architect 2 September 2, 1892 page 167
Reference    Manchester City News 3 September 1892 Page 8 Column 5
Reference    British Architect 9 September 1892 page 183 – results
Reference    British Architect 16 September 16, 1892 page 202-203
Reference    British Architect 30 September 1892 page 240 designs of Gibson and Russell
Reference    British Architect 30 September 1892 page 240 designs of Ernest Runtz illustrated
Reference    British Architect 7 October 1892 page 260 designs of Spalding and Cross illustrated
Reference    British Architect 7 October 1892 page 256 - Comment on the lack of a written report by Waterhouse
Reference    British Architect 21 October 1892 page 296 designs of Theodore Sington illustrated