Dear readers — today bears witness to the return of a Mill favourite: David Rudlin. David is our unofficial planning correspondent, and his previous pieces, about the development of the city’s suburbs, its need for more social housing, or about the Manchester Guide to Development, a little-known planning document written in 1996 that went on to change the face of the city, are always incredibly popular.
That last one, titled ‘The short, controversial document that changed the face of Manchester’, was really popular, one of our most read pieces of 2024. Which a) explains the title of today’s piece and b) combined with today’s article, about the development of the Smithfield Building also in 1996, marks 1996 as a serious contender to be the most important year in Manchester's modern history. We hope you enjoy the piece.
Don’t forget about the other city this festival season
A day-to-night party, seventeen venues across the city and over 100 acts – Sounds From the Other City returns this May for another stellar year. From Salford Art Gallery and Museum to The White Hotel, Sounds is a festival like no other. For one jam-packed day, the Festival takes over the city and invites you in, celebrating all that's new in the music and arts scene. Taking place just around the corner on the May Bank Holiday on Sunday 3rd, SFTOC is unofficially the first festival of the summer.
For Final Release tickets (including limited group discounts), line up info and more, click below.
The Northern Quarter building that changed Manchester forever
This story begins in a bar in Liverpool and ends up changing the face of housing in Manchester. It centres on one building in the Northern Quarter, beneath which you’ll now find bars, record shops and shops selling second-hand Carhartt trousers. It is, in my opinion, one of the most important buildings in the development of modern Manchester.
When The Mill emailed me a few weeks back asking for a piece exploring the evolution of city centre living in Manchester, Jonathan Falkingham and Tom Bloxham — who founded the development company Urban Splash in 1991 — were the first people I thought of. On my bookshelf I still have an Urban Splash brochure for one of their buildings: the Smithfield Building on Oldham Street in the Northern Quarter.
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