SO after months of consultation the 'new production centre for international contemporary art, theatre and film formed by the merger of Cornerhouse and the Library Theatre Company' will be called Home.
The odd choice of name won't matter of course if Home gets its programming right. If it produces plays that enthrall, fills its galleries with fascinating and exciting art and finds the right movies to put on its screens it will be a winner.
Home.
So a safe and cosy environment then, home sweet home, a home from home, a pair of old slippers. Hello mum. Hello dad.
Well no, not that at all.
The opposite in fact.
Let's get back to the press release.
'The name Home,' says the marketing folk, 'has come out of a detailed and collaborative research and consultation process, which involved more than 150 people including local residents, audience members and key partners from across the city, as well as an online forum where people could contribute their thoughts.
'They were asked about the cultural organisations they admire and enjoy, as well as what they feel the atmosphere and character of the new organisation should be. The results of the research have not only contributed to choosing a name, but are informing everything from programme development to interior design.
'Home was a word which recurred often when people were asked what the new organisation should be – a second home, somewhere you feel at home, the home of great work. It reflects the warmth felt towards Cornerhouse and Library Theatre Company, as well as the aspiration that the new organisation should be accessible and welcoming.'
This is a bit strange.
Model showing height of the new arts, film and performance centre over the railways viaduct on Whitworth Street West
Confidential was part of this process and can't recall any 'consultants' mentioning the word 'home' and its connotations. Instead the words people were using were 'innovative', 'radical', 'compelling', 'original', 'lively', not words most people would want routinely applied to home-life.
Dave Moutrey, Director and Chief Executive of Cornerhouse and the Library Theatre Company, explains Home this way.
“Our conversations," he says, "threw up two contrasting aspirations for the future of the organisation – the friendly, warm and playful aspect is contained in the word ‘Home’. Alongside this, many of the people we spoke to wanted the new organisation to be somewhere that challenged them and made them think. This aspect will be further developed in our visual identity, as well as in our programming, which is now starting to take shape.”
So 'Home' was 50% of the decision then and probably the wrong half for most.
The big problem is that 'Home' seems meaningless in the context of a cinema, art gallery and theatre complex. Who goes out to go home?
The title might just as well have been 'Cake' or 'Budgerigar' or 'WhatTheHell?' because some smart argument could have been made to explain it away.
Nouns used in the abstract for public buildings are always fraught with difficulties.
The most notorious example of this is The Public designed by Will Alsop in West Bromwich in the West Midlands. Many people in the area had no idea what this 'art gallery and multi-purpose venue' was for when it was being built and still have no idea. It's taken a change of ownership and vast public subsidies to even begin to make sense of it.
In Liverpool there's FACT. Hands up those outside the arts world who have heard of this cinema and arts venue; now hands up those who've heard of the Walker Art Gallery or the Maritime Museum?
(To be fair at least FACT has some justification as an acronym - Foundation for Art and Creative Technology - though there's still a disconnect between the acronym and the word it creates.)
Closer to Home (ho, ho), the Latin word Urbis never fired the popular imagination whereas in a couple of months half the country seems to have become aware of the National Football Museum, largely because it describes exactly what it does.
The Public, FACT, Urbis all seem, or seemed, forced, unnatural, born from a desperate need to be either clever or involve everybody in a bureaucratic decision making process that backs itself into a cul-de-sac.
We could all pick more obvious alternatives to Home.
My son, all of 12 years, came up with CAT Manchester after seventeen and a half seconds - Cinema, Arts, Theatre. Makes more sense to me.
Or what about Manchester Arts, Performance and Film centre (MAPF)?
Or even the Bernstein and Leese Show? Maybe not.
The good news is that Home will have a better chance of making a name for itself because it will hold the bones of strong institutions in the form of the Cornerhouse and The Library Theatre. It will be able to draw on a loyal audience from the beginning, despite inevitably losing its Oxford Road barflies.
Mecanoo design
Meanwhile the design from Mecanoo looks the very model of a modern major arts complex. It may be a tool to get people to invest in the First Street speculation but it's a handsome one.
Of course none of this will matter a jot if Home gets its programming right. It will be a winner if it produces plays that enthrall, fills its galleries with fascinating and exciting art and finds the right movies for its screens.
Should that happen - and it should - then nobody will remember the tortuous name-making process. Well except of course, us, when we have to explain to visitors what we mean by saying odd sentences such as, "Shall we go to Home tonight."
So maybe as with the Olympic mascots it'll all work out in the end. Now what were the names of those mascots again?
