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LUCKY. This is lucky.
To stand on the very roof of the CIS Tower, in the fresh air, not boxed in by glass is a boon that isn't often granted.
Of course it's usually blowing a gale. But it's magnificent. Wales to the south west, Pennines north and east, the Cheshire Plain into Staffordshire to the south.
Constructed from black enamelled steel, glass, aluminium and mosaic it remains the best of the tall buildings in Manchester from the sixties and seventies. I
It's a special moment on a special building.
The CIS Tower was officially opened in 1962 by the Duke of Edinburgh and for a time was the tallest office block in northern Europe at 122m (400ft). Grade II listed, it’s a beauty to this day, as fresh in profile as the day it was completed.
The brief from the Cooperative Insurance Society was for an office block that could compete with the best in London or New York whilst providing the city with a building that pointed to the future. The architects were GS Hay of the CWS and Gordon Tait of Sir John Burnet, Tait and Partners.
They took a design from Chicago of the Inland Steel Building by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and filled the aforementioned brief exactly.
Chicago's Inland Steel Building
Constructed from black enamelled steel, glass, aluminium and mosaic it remains the best of the tall buildings in Manchester from the sixties and seventies. It also balances that other great tall building of Manchester, Beetham Tower. Viewed from east or west the city centre is anchored by these two lanky lovelies.
Some mosaic work remains at lower levels but the majority of it has been removed and replaced by photo-voltaic panels. As it was a listed building this was a bit naughty but hey, if you play the environmental card - less of a carbon footprint or something - then you can get away with anything. Cleverly you also get a government grant, which all helps in the refurbishment costs. The panels convert daylight (not just sunshine) into energy, which according to a stat I once read, is the equivalent of 10 million cups of tea brewed annually.
Crumbling mosaics at ground level from the original design
The twenty-third and twenty-fourth floors, almost the very top of the tower, are the most impressive interior areas. These are panelled with lovely pale wood inspired by the best Scandinavian interiors of the time:Ikea eat your heart out this is the real deal.
The twenty-fourth floor was the executive dining area and here the CIS missed a trick. They could have opened these areas as Cloud 24, a high level bar and dining area, and trumped Cloud 23. In the high-dining game altitude matters and with more floor space and extra height the queues awaiting judgement from any clipboard inquisition might have swung north.
That aside a few curiosities remain such as the meeting rooms that contain not plasma screens or the latest in powerpoint technology but behind panel doors a blackboard. There's a work by Lowry too.
In the entrance hall a bronzed fibreglass mural by William Mitchell is so of its time you want to break into an impromptu rendition of 'Please, Please Me'. We recently wrote about another William Mitchell work here.
A 1960s powerpoint presentation
Gordo of Manchester Confidential has a good story about the CIS. The family had a friend called Drew Barlow. Barlow invented the first vertical blinds – Luva Drapes - and didn’t know what to do with them. Then the CIS ordered thousands for their shiny new building.
The rumour is that Barlow was so pleased he got blind drunk - but he pulled himself together later.
This story from early 2013 has been re-published with the night-time picture from One Angel Square, two below.
Toasting the opening back in the long long ago, looking down over the Cathedral
The majesty of the CIS from One Angel Square
Grey is the day but dramatic too
Not a ride but the sweep of Angel Square over St Michael's Flags park
Not a patio in a garden somewhere but paving up in the sky
1962 graffiti from when the CIS Tower was finished
Honestly I just couldn't get enough of taking these pictures down the girders
Crumbling mosaics from the original building
William Mitchell's bronzed fibreglass mural in the entrance hall
Burnt out building onn Oldham Street being demolised after the recent fire
Great Ancoats Street from on high
Another grim Lowry - possibly called 'Man erects unfeasible stepladder to nowhere'
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Brilliant!
Next thing you know you'll be joining in with the urban exploration boys over on 28dayslater.co.uk. Great pics by the way!
The Beetham Tower despite being over 40 years newer, is very ugly, and unattractive compared to the CIS. The CIS has integrity in its design and appearance..the Beetham Tower is mishapen with that ugly overhang halfway up and the stupid vanes at the top...like what are they for?...almost any tall building in China, the Far East generally or the US is more attractive...a wasted opportunity.
I love the Beetham Tower... :) That is all.
I love the Hilton Tower as well. More please! Even taller would be good...
I've never liked the CIS building and it looks even uglier and more dated. It suits Chicago not Manchester. The Nazis have still got a lot to answer for. Parker Street for one thing. Some post war, 60's and 70's buildings are just dreadful eg. the original Arndale and its tower, Albert Bridge House, and the Renaissance Hotel at the end of Deansgate.
Beetham tower's ugly and it's just too tall for the city. They're spending a fortune replacing some of those huge glass windows already.
Total bollocks.
I think I'm great, even though I know that I have a personality only a mother could love.
So are you saying that the nazis fled germany after the war to set up in manchester as town planners and architects? sounds like a daily mail editorial to me.
What is the relevance of the second Anonymous 217 is relationship with their mother?
I'm saying that Fifth Column placed a homing beacon on a Parker Steet rooftop in December 1940 for the Luftwaffe to home in on, for the sole purpose of making that side of post war Piccadilly, Manchester look bloody awful. The only Nazi that never returned to Germany after the war was Bert Trautmann, and City thought the world of him, even though he'd killed British soldiers some years earlier.<br /><br />The football chant "Trautmann was a Nazi" never really caught on though.
Albert Bridge House is rather attractive I think...
Interesting artical and pictures.
Great stuff...Our city is NOT easy on the eye but you have to LOVE it!!
No...no you don't.
If you don't like it, make it better - or leave!
I love my city, but I don't like the CIS tower.
Imagine if he fell off.
It ain't getting any better looking is it. SORT IT OUT PLEASE? It's not that difficult is it? Is it??
Here, here JAMES.
You mean 'hear, hear'.
Or hear, hear even.
What's not getting any better looking folks? And Mark I did fall off. Fortunately I landed on a marshmallow.
All non alphanumeric stuff in the rants e.g. £ " etc.
I've been lucky enough to abseil down the CIS tower. Amazing experience. What about an article about the network of tunnels beneath the Co-op complex? It's a fascinating otherworld down there.
It is a classy building and the blue solar panels have only added to its appeal. Manchester's skyline would be poorer without it....
Good article and pics. In my view it's one of the best post war modernist buildings in the country. I like Beetham too, though I thought I was going to hate it when it started going up, and up. Piccadilly Plaza was a fine architectural concept that didn't work because the shopping precinct wasn't thought out properly and the whole place was allowed to get tatty. And thanks, Ghostly Tom , for the reminder about Albert Bridge House. It would scrub up nicely if the civil service moved out, and stands up well against most of the stuff that's gone up in the last 5-6 years.
I think ABH is wearing well and is a very pleasing building. I.m coming round to all the 60s architecture especially things under some threat like The Toast Rack and the buildings on the old UMIST Campus...
Some great memories worked on there as an apprentice. The 1963 winter was freezing 18 floors up with no windows in VERY cold wind blowing through.
That sounds cold. But it's a lovely building I find, rain or shine. Uplifting - literally.
The CIS Building is outstanding. The Beetham Tower and Arndale Centre are ugly. The Beetham Tower is about the ugliest tall building anywhere. That stupid grill-like vane on top...what's that about? The inelegant overhang halfway up. A great opportunity squandered to give Manchester an exciting new tall building.
I like the sheer glacial glass facades, I like the overhang and the vane that give the building it's character. I love the way you can see it from all over Manchester and beyond but sometimes completely disappears in the city centre. It is beautiful. The city needs more tall buildings. A cluster at the end of Deansgate/Chester Road would be stunning. More please...