Manchester International Conference Centre, Manchester City Centre

Manchester City Council

The brief from the client, Manchester City Council Special Projects, required a convention centre which should make a significant contribution to the expanding campus and to the urban regeneration of the area. The building should be a standalone facility as well as working in conjunction with the end user’s existing buildings the G-Mex exhibition hall and its existing seminar centre.

The design team were appointed in 1997, planning permission granted in May 1998 with construction work commencing in January 1999 following a 3 month tender and negotiation period. Manchester’s £23m International Convention Centre welcomed its first delegates in April 2001.

The MICC is situated on the site of a former railway terminus which formed a plateau rising approximately 4m above the inclining Windmill Street. The site is situated at the juxtaposition of the city’s two dominant street grids which intersect at 20˚ to each other. The design also had to relate to the large pavilion buildings of the Bridgewater Hall, G-Mex and the Great Northern Warehouse which form the key elements of the Great Northern Initiative, a 45,500m² city centre regeneration site.

The street geometry together with the incline of the site was a key generator of the architectural expression. The site features are expressed by the flat roof plates of the foyer spaces which give focus to the vertically spiraling articulation of the geometric forms.

The completed MICC comprises an 800-seat auditorium and a 1800m² banqueting and exhibition hall. Two levels of foyer space, with fully glazed facades, provide access to the auditorium which is augmented by associated ‘break out’ meeting rooms, administrative offices, catering facilities and other back-of-house functions.

The fan form of the auditorium, generated by acoustic studies for speech rather than music, is expressed externally as a homogenous red sandstone form crowned with a metal roof. This form dominates the approach elevations rising above the public foyers allowing a teasing glimpse of underbelly fully revealed internally.

The completed building is an unequivocal piece of contemporary architecture set within the context of a substantially Victorian city. The MICC fulfills the city’s brief that required a building to make a significant architectural contribution to the city and to the urban regeneration of the area. The facility fulfills a need for a world-class venue which would become a key element of the 2002 Commonwealth Games.