MANCHESTER City Council has made its first major appointment for the city’s new £110m cutting-edge multi-arts venue, Factory Manchester.
The North’s new flagship arts centre will ‘combine digital capability, hyper-flexibility and wide-open space'
Jenny Baxter, the current Chief Operating Officer for BBC England at MediaCityUK and the former controller of BBC News Production, has been announced as Project Director and will join the programme in early Autumn ahead of the official opening in 2019.
"The Factory will showcase world-class creativity in the heart of this region and I am thrilled to be appointed to lead its development,” said Baxter. “It will be a stunning building that is going to make a key contribution to the UK's ambitious cultural future."
Leader of Manchester City Council, Sir Richard Leese, said he was very pleased to 'have secured such a creative, experienced leader' for the project.
The news follows the appointment of Pritzker Prize-winning Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas - once cited as the 'most influential and controversial architect of his generation' – whose design (pictured) won the council’s international design competition back in November – read here.
Jenny Baxter - Factory Manchester's new Project Director
A spokesperson for Factory Manchester said the North’s new flagship arts centre will ‘combine digital capability, hyper-flexibility and wide-open space, encouraging artists to collaborate in new ways, and imagine the previously unimagined.’
Located within ITV's former Granada Studios complex, The Factory will form the cultural centrepiece to the 15-acre £1.5bn St John’s neighbourhood - a joint development project between Spinningfields developers Allied London and Manchester City Council.
The Factory project received a £78m pledge from the government during last year’s Autumn Statement. Work on Factory Manchester is due to begin in 2016 with completion expected in 2019.
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