Salford
Quays
Salford Quays is the name
by which the Terminus Docks of the Manchester
Ship Canal have emerged after a considerable make-over which
has yet to run its course.
Unlike such urban complexes
as Buda-Pest and Minneapolis-St Paul there is lurking almost unknown,
in the shadow of Manchester, the City of Salford with which the
urban sprawl of Greater Manchester is shared. It was never the
Salford Ship Canal but now the home site of the docks has been
recognised.
Manchester, however, has
not departed the scene completely, the stands of the Old Trafford
ground of Manchester United proclaim
their identity across the water.
...
The Centenary Walkway commemorates
with stainless steel plaques the facts and remembrances of the
active life of the docks and canal and the men and women who constructed
and served here.
Salford Quays is now a major
tourist attraction in addition to the offices and housing which
have developed on the site. Here the dock cranes stand sentinel
at the head of the Ontario Basin which commemorates the MSC grain
trade with Canada and the reason for the Kellogg factory nearby.
The Dock Office building
originally of the Ship Canal Company now in other occupancy.
...
Furness House built for
the Furness-Withy Line was rather daring in the '60s but glass
and steel was shaped rather differently thirty or so years later
for the buildings on Exchange Quay.
...
Nature and leisure pursuits
are active where serious commercial activity previously reigned.
The two swans facing each other are engaged in their own activity
of mating rituals - neck-dancing to each other.
Modern and post-modern architecture
is the language of most of the new buildings, and carried to noteworthy
lengths in some cases ...
... as this collection of
structures, perhaps, indicates.
The footbridge links Manchester's
Trafford Wharf with Salford's Central Wharf and is raised by lifting
the deckspan up the towers via cables to allow ships to pass under.
A truly modern project,
no Victorian philanthropists or industrialists here these days.
Across the bridge the reflective
planes of bronzed glass of the Quay West building present a jewelled
attraction ...
... that could be near impossible
to resist.
And when you haven't resisted?
A reflection of where you have come from! With intrepid photographer
at bottom right.
More revealing of the anatomy
of the bridge and the striking apartment building dominating one
side of the piazza, without the distortion of the reflection.
The
Lowry Theatre and Exhibition
Complex dominates another side of the piazza.
...
It is certainly not overstating
to name it a Complex!
Back across the water the
unusual shape but less complex form of the Imperial War Museum
North faces The Lowry.
Against the sinking sun
the dredger 'Severn' eases gently into the basin.
No pretty colours but quite
a dramatic sky on which to depart.
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