PETER JENKINS says, “The ambition was to make a statement with the design. We wanted to be ambitious with the roof, as ambitious as the Victorians.”
Jenkins, from BDP design practice, is the Project Director for the re-invention of Victoria Station. The £44m refurbishment has been fraught. The quietly-spoken Jenkins explains the complexity of knitting a main rail line, Metrolink, a heap of delightful heritage detail overseen by the fastidious public body English Heritage ('Mind those tiles, watch that wood and careful with that beam, Eugene') together with the vast lumpen bulk of The Manchester Arena.
The mighty new roof swoops in from the east and then swivels to the north. This is a thing of wonder.
“We needed to take Arena traffic away from the trains and ticket gates. That was achieved with a bridge leading from the Arena east over the platforms terminating in a travel centre, cafe and WH Smith. This created more room for circulation.” says Jenkins.
His solution, a couple of months away from completion of the project, looks convincing with the bridge energetically leaping platforms.
I’m not sure about the overbearing cafe and WH Smith block where the bridge terminates. It lurks too close to the original ticket offices which are wondrously still operating. Not sure about the buff concrete facing it either, apparently to match the Edwardian brickwork. You can see how the block makes sense from a commercial and practical point of view but it does nothing for the main concourse of the station.
Peter JenkinsNot that you notice it at first. What dominates and drags the eye away from anything else is the mighty new roof as it swoops in from the east and then swivels to the north. This really is a thing of wonder. Catch it down Hanover Street from Shudehill and you stop in the street and stare. Between buildings, at the bottom of the street, is a naturalistic form that appears to have attached itself like an exotic plant or centipede to the station. The stats are impressive, for instance, the largest of the steel ribs is 100m long and weighs almost 70 tonnes.
The panels between the roof ribs are filled with ETFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) panels, ‘a lighter and cheaper alternative to glass’. The ribs were manufactured by Sellafield Watson from Bolton.
Jenkins says: “ETFE gives the roof lightness. We would have to have made the ribs much stronger if we’d glazed the roof and the extra cost would have been substantial. Remember this is cutting edge building technology being used not only to reduce costs but perform a function as well. ETFE lightens the load but also helps control the light coming in. Network Rail were concerned there might be too much glare.”
Er. Right. If we’re referring to Victorian ambition would they have gone down the non-glazed cheaper route, didn't they have remedies for glare with the glass they used? Admittedly the ETFE effect provides a fine environmental effect but glass has tradition and a sense of permanence. Maybe I'm being old-fashioned.
Still, look at this sequence.
Doors were unlocked for us by Daniel, a pleasant young man from Northern Rail, the company that operates the station although Network Rail owns it. Maybe it’s the other way round. Bloody rail privatisation, the ultimate befuddling British fudge of a notion. What is the collective noun for a confusion of contracts?
The heritage areas are key in Victoria and aside from the new roof define the station. The canopy with destination names in amusing sequences such as Hull-Belgium-Liverpool has been cleaned and replaced on the facade. These date from the rebuilding and enlargement of Victoria Station for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway in 1909 by architect William Dawes.
The sturdy wooden panelled ticket office is a cracker, as is the famous tiled map and the grand WW1 War Memorial from the firm of George Wragge (click here) – when these are cleaned and retouched they will look excellent. The gold and aquamarine mosaics in and around the ‘Refreshment Room’, 'Restaurant', 'Grill' and ‘Bookstall’ areas are superb too.
But oh dear, the restaurant.
The Pevsner guide to Manchester re-written and edited by Clare Hartwell says this: ‘The refreshment-room interior has walls of marble, mosaic and tiles, and the underside of the dome is richly decorated.’
BDP were only allowed to address the upper areas in these special places and they’ve done a grand job with the dome in particular. But they can do nothing about the odious rail caterer Pumpkin from SSP Group which has trodden on, abused and disgracefully treated for many years this area of the building. Mosiacs sit next to slot machines, the atmosphere of decline makes the worst motorway service station appear exotic. Pumpkin are the lowest common denominator of chain catering specialising in tawdry burgers, pasties to die for (literally) and a range of Fosters lagers.
What Network Rail who own the site should do post FORTY FOUR MILLION POUNDS of refurbishment is ensure Manchester Victoria gets something akin to the Sheffield Tap at Sheffield Station. The latter is a work of art in terms of civilised ‘refreshment’. Given Victoria’s footfall and its captive Arena audience it’s a no-brainer.
The lack of ambition continues.
Next door, hidden away for years, the old first glass refreshment room has been recovered. It’s a graceful ensemble of tile, classical detailing, arches, swags and a fine mosaic floor.
"This could be the place of redemption for Victoria,” I enthuse like a giddy child. “I can see an operation like Propertea close to the Cathedral, wonderful drinks, great cakes, the rich bounty of artisan bakers. Or maybe an oyster bar, chilled bubbly and seafood eh? What do you think?”
“It’s been let to Starbucks,” came the reply.
Oh come on, honestly Network Rail, you can do better than that. This might be a Starbucks with a drinks' licence (which is a bit unusual) but it's still a Starbucks.
There’s also a panelled smoking room next door, with an unspecified future use, and tucked in a corner of a corridor is a kiosk from which the original travellers would send telegrams. How many of these features are left in the country? Ten? One? Will the public get to see it? No.
The upstairs parts of the original building have been bashed about for fifty years. Peter Jenkins says, “Once the station is up and running fully and very busy then it would be pleasant to think a boutique hotel group might take this space over.” It’d make sense but would the hotel want a Starbucks where their bar should be?
The rare telegram boothAt the far end of the old station building from the War Memorial is an archway called the Soldiers Gate, out of which soldiers left, many never to return. A brutal looking slab of steel now closes off the space with holes punched through in a pattern reflecting the position of war cemeteries in north west France. The holes look like bullet holes. The idea has a logic to it but is clumsy, too aggressive when set against the florid decoration of the Edwardian station and the carefully crafted details on the older War Memorial. It smacks of a rushed solution.
Of course the main worth of Victoria Station is mechanistic. It will prove itself if there is an efficient movement of people between city centre, trams, trains, taxis, buses and the Arena. But it also has to have aesthetic value given the scale of the structure. Undoubtedly the new roof has this – well done Mr Jenkins – and it’s also a triumph of engineering and a credit to BDP, the rail authorities and Manchester.
Other elements aren’t so welcome. The principal of these being the weighty element with the WH Smith’s shop and the cafe at the termination of the Arena bridge that blocks the view to trams and trains and is too close to the old booking desks. And let’s hope the remaining heritage areas are sensitively cleaned as promised before the station refurbishment money runs out.
Other errors are more puzzling. Giving Starbucks the catering areas is so unimaginative it beggars belief. Would they have done this in a principal London station?
What is clear is Victoria Station needed a proper overhaul. It was a right mess. What is less clear is whether the refurbishment in all its component parts is as good as it could have been. Roof aside is it international standard? How it all works out will depend on the vision Network Rail and Northern Rail have for Victoria.
The old roofline is marked by downlighters
