IT's all about the elaborate swagger of Manchester Town Hall on one side and the stern confidence of the Town Hall Extension on the other.
It's about the pair of bronze faced bridges linking the buildings, the nearest one in these pictures binding the older Council Chamber with the newer.
The result of this clearing of clutter and this refinement of the surface has resulted in the creation of great British urban view.
Manchester Town Hall and the Town Hall Extension have never been more happily married than after the recent urban improvements.
The Town Hall was designed by Alfred Waterhouse and completed in 1877. The Town Hall Extension was designed by Emanuel Vincent Harris and completed in 1938.
The view again
By paving completely between the buildings, rather than leaving a tarmac stretch on Lloyd Street, the buildings seem to have been unified as part of a dynamic civic whole.
It's moving to see the effect the uniform pavement has lent the view here - although the old pavement around the Town Hall is still marked, it's in the same stone creating almost a seamless surface.
Clean lines and seamless uniformity
It gets better too.
The view down Lloyd Street under the elegant but monumental bridges frames three superb structures by a couple of big name architects.
The first of these is Sir Edwin Lutyens' Cenotaph originally erected in 1924 to mark the grief of the First World War and now marking the grief of all subsequent conflicts imvolving Britain.
Behind the Cenotaph are glimpses of Charles Barry's Manchester Institution for the Promotion of Science, Literature and the Arts (1835) and his Athenaeum (1837), both now part of Manchester Art Gallery.
Lutyen's Cenotaph and Barry's Art Gallery and Athenaeum
Lutyens' designed India's New Delhi parliamentary buildings in the 1920s, Barry designed the Houses of Parliament in London in the 1840s. The mighty sub-continent and the former colonial power are fleetingly re-united in this view.
You have to hope the shifting of the Cenotaph across St Peter's Square was deliberately engineered to provide focus at the end of Lloyd Street.
Although if it were a happy accident then no matter, the result of this clearing of clutter and this refinement of the surface between the Town Hall and the Town Hall Extension has resulted in the creation of a great British urban view. It also gives the Cenotaph a far better location then it previously had in Manchester. It's accidentally arrived in the right place.
Charles Barry's winning entry for the Manchester Institution carried the Latin motto 'Nihil Pulchrum Nisi Utile' or 'nothing beautiful unless useful'. It fits this view snugly.
Harris's bronze bridge kisses Waterhouse's Town Hall at the Council Chamber level
Bear that motto in mind and bear in mind the phrase 'clearing of clutter' and then weep to see how just on the other side of The Town Hall Extension a view has been vandalised. What the council give with one hand they take with the other at Library Walk.
We can begin to see how Confidential and other campaigners were right to regard the glass blob designed by Ian Simpson Architects (ISA) as a ghastly and pointless intrusion in a much loved soft caress of an urban space.
Blob in the middle
Confidential calls it Sir Richard Leese's Folly after the City Council Leader's intransigence in the face of criticism over the structure: and because of the ludicrous cost of £3.5m.
The architects involved have also betrayed their principles.
Barry's Latin motto could have been used as a motto by so many of the International Modern architects so revered by ISA and others. But it's been ignored here, instead florid artifice has been imposed where none were needed.
The pointlessness of the whole exercise in 'needing' to link the two buildings at this level is shown in the video below. The Central Library and The Town Hall Extension are joined by a three car wide gap at basement level. There are good lifts to get people up and down.
Building works associated with the glass blob currently block the three car wide access between Central Library and The Town Hall Extension and even then a smaller side door is adequate
The video shows how it takes less than two minutes to walk from the entrance of one building on St Peter's Square to the entrance of the other on Mount Street.
Another uncomfortable truth for the blockage has become apparent as the Library Walk blob grows. On the CGIs it looked like a light filled, almost invisible, barrier. In reality the way light and shade falls here hasn't been kind to the Library Walk intrusion.
It turns black - unless there's some element yet to be revealed that we haven't seen. Being so dark makes it resemble a particularly big and very dowdy bus-stop. The world's most expensive bus-stop.
Bright and happy in CGI land
Dark and dim in reality
But why should we care?
It's only a little thing.
We should care because despite hundreds of legitimate citizen objections clearly articulated and presented to the council over the destruction of this much loved space the council has refused to listen. We should care because the level of cost at £3.5m is not justified by what's been delivered.
Of course, decisions have to be made by councils, bold ones on occasion, but the dismissiveness of Manchester in this particular case, especially after a perfunctory planning meeting, smells wrong. Stinks.
It's no surprise that in October the Council are facing a public enquiry into whether they acted legally over the stopping up order for Library Walk. Good work by the Friends of Library Walk here.
Despite the doubts about Library Walk it remains a fact that the Lloyd Street view east towards Manchester Art Gallery is wonderful.
It's just a shame that we couldn't have two stately civic routes and vistas here rather than one.
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter @JonathSchofield or connect via Google+
Under the bridges down Lloyd Street way
