Howard Smith, one of my readers, has tried to post a comment about Sir Michael Hopkins, but has not been able to and the truth is that I don’t know how the system works myself, so I am posting it myself, because it refers to one of their works which is less often referred to involving the total renovation and reconstruction of the Manchester City Art Gallery in 2002 (I might add that I remember visiting it myself not long after it opened and being very impressed by the way it combined the original Charles Barry building with the old Athenaeum behind, a model of sympathetic and intelligent stitching together of two historic buildings and an important moment in marking the move of the Heritage Lottery Fund as it then was from supporting prestige London projects to a much wider distribution of funding):-

MANCHESTER ART GALLERY

Michael Hopkins and Partners were responsible for a significant expansion of Manchester Art Gallery, completed in 2002 for the Commonwealth Games. This is their only art gallery project, as far as I am aware and is not as well known as their other buildings in the UK. I was a member of the curatorial team that helped deliver it. The brief was complex: to link two important buildings by Sir Charles Barry, the Grade I City Art Gallery and the Athenaeum, respecting their integrity whilst creating a new building on an adjacent car park site. This was achieved by inserting a glazed atrium, enabling views through from adjacent streets that features an imposing central staircase (echoing that in Barry’s Art Gallery) flanked by exposed lifts. A dramatic bridge with glass-block floor is at first floor level. Hopkins’s muscular modernism of steel and glass contrasts successfully with the beautiful mellow stonework in Italianate style of the former rear of the Gallery. The new building has two floors of galleries and educational facilities. The existing historic galleries were sensitively refurbished to current standards, retaining elements of decoration from an earlier scheme. The Athenaeum’s first and second floor (formerly a members’ lecture theatre) were converted into display spaces.

Viewing the Art Gallery’s façade little is revealed of the extensive changes but walking around the now completed street block, one encounters the new build exterior: exposed concrete frames, bronze sub-frames and stone panels complementing both historic buildings. Throughout the new build, Hopkins and his team devoted tremendous care in the detailed design, for example with the lighting modules and subtly modulated cast concrete ceiling panels. They provided Manchester with a first-class gallery that plays an important role in the city’s cultural life.