How do you make a home for a festival that famously makes the city itself its home? A venue that can accommodate both the visual and the performing arts on a site that speaks to that city’s illustrious past and burgeoning future? In Manchester, England—that industrial powerhouse of the 19th century and now one of the fastest-growing urban centers in Europe, after a decades-long reputation as a place well past its prime—the answer is a building that is several buildings in one, by a firm that knows a thing or two about designing flexible spaces.
The new 144,000-square-foot structure is the latest cultural project by the Rotterdam office of OMA, led by partner Ellen van Loon. Recently rechristened Aviva Studios after being called The Factory for years during construction—Factory International is the organization behind both the biennial Manchester International Festival (MIF) and the building’s year-round programming—it combines a 1,600-seat auditorium at its west end, known as the Hall; a massive rectangular space for performance and exhibition, dubbed the Warehouse, in the middle; and back-of-house towers at the east end. Each of these takes on different forms and materials, converging within a densely packed plot of former industrial buildings on the banks of the River Irwell and surrounded by looming residential high-rises (a new phenomenon in the city). “The building’s very much inspired by the architecture of Manchester, which is quite an unplanned architecture,” says John McGrath, artistic director of Factory International. “It’s different kinds of things, often rubbing shoulders against each other, but in conversation with each other.”
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