Have you ever visited Urbis in Manchester? Situated a stone’s throw away from Selfridges in an iconic building, Urbis describes itself as ‘Manchester’s glittering pop culture palace’, and over the last six years established an enviable reputation for putting on crowd pulling and pleasing exhibitions. My limited experience was one where I would happily mooch for an age, dipping in and out of the exhibitions and enjoying people watching from the street level cafe. (Great shop too!)
Sadly, Urbis is now enjoying it’s last month as the building will house the relocated National Football Museum. This decision has not been universally appreciated, a quick survey on twitter demonstrates a deep affection and loyalty towards it. This view is not confined to the partisan of Manchester, yes some people from Leeds actually admitted to admiring Urbis, and not through gritted teeth.
Maybe it’s not really the end…recently, Vaughan Allen, Urbis Chief Executive, was quoted in the Guardian as hoping “a property developer will consider a new version of Urbis elsewhere in the city. Or even in other places in the UK”. He said “The real victory would be, in two or three years, eight, 10, 12 galleries in Britain looking at popular culture … it is ludicrous that there are no other galleries really supporting or showing it. We shied away from taking an academic approach to a subject and we liked doing stuff that was still alive and still happening”
We have been granted a huge honour in being asked to join Urbis at their last (exclusive, invite only) shindig on the 25th February, and what’s more we have teamed up with a nearby hotel to offer one lucky reader (plus guest) the opportunity to enjoy a memorable, moving evening. All you need do is let us know in the comments box whether Leeds or Bradford should or could kidnap Urbis and where should it be housed! Winners will be picked based on the interestingness of their response! (This is entirely subjective!)
YES! Leeds should definitely kidnap Urbis – and what better place for Urbis than an Urban Village?!
As part of the city lending itself to the arts scene with Pavilion leading the Leeds Art Walks and the revival of Temple Works, Holbeck Urban Village would be a great place to expriment with Urbis’ take on popular culture.
Where do we sign?
Definitely Leeds as far more vibrant than Manchester, and should be the Old Broadcasting House, 148 Woodhouse Lane, LS2 9EN as it oozes style.
Of course we ought to nab it!
Venue wise, where better than Cuthbert Broderick’s own, underused Corn Exchange. Lets face it, it’s not up to much at the moment, and would make a great site – each of the old shop units could house different exhibitions, pulled together by the beautiful vaulted central space.
Leeds should not kidnap, rather adopt and nurture.
As for a venue, why stick with the old way of doing it in one permanent venue, surely a museum of popular culture should embrace the ethos, lets go guerilla and have different things happening in different places.
And brand it urbLS.
Temple Works gets my vote. A wonderful venue which is just waiting to be the home to something like Urbis. It offers an amazing space and is surrounded by some really good cafe culture in Holbeck Urban Village. It’s also within easy reach of the train station and with the south entrance to the station on it’s way it’ll be perfect for city visitors to be able to pop into Leeds on the train.
I’m afraid the simple answer is only if you have a city council that is prepared to heavily subsidise it. The idea that a commercial entity (particularly a property company) would invest in something that operates like urbis does/did is frankly absurd. Shame though – a museum without artefacts seemed like a great idea at the time.
Its not absurd at all Harry. We’re not talking developers who convert houses into flats and rent them to students. If you’re a developer resurrecting a whole area of a city and want to drive 100K+ potential high-spenders to an area, which in turn will attract cafes and restaurants, which in turn attracts people to buy flats, and companies to set up offices, its quite a canny move.
The running costs of a place like Urbis (once divorced from that immensely expensive building) are actually fairly small. And would be a drop in the ocean to a major developer (albeit, council support would be useful) in terms of their marketing budget.
Whilst i think the idea of taking the concept of Urbis forward in Leeds is in principal a good one, a LOT of careful thought would have to go into the whole idea of it.
Having visited Urbis a few times over the past years, I think it was fatally flawed that ultimately resulted in nobody in Manchester really loving it (other than the culture lovers). As a creatiove person, I really liked the things that happened there – it provided a great venue for the things I love but it’s remit was ultimately too narrow. Externally, the broader public of manchester struggled to know what it actually was and this resulted in Urbis becoming a very easy target for the local authorities.
If Leeds was to ‘reinvent’ Urbis with a clear proposition and make it an essential part of the cultural fabric of not only Leeds, but West Yorkshire, I think it would succeed.
Ultimately, someone at the top has to have the vision, determination and balls to pull it off. And there’s not doubting we need it, but who could make it happen?
I’m not sure about waiting on someone “at the top” to supply vision, determination, and the necessary whatnots. Perhaps that’s the problem. Maybe it’s up to the rest of us further down the pile to do something interesting. Like you say, sponsorship from the local state doesn’t guarantee a project will get any warm and fuzzy feelings from anyone beyond the usual grant-chasing, middle-class, cultural scroungers. And look at what’s just happened to The Foundry in Shoreditch, a genuine, well-loved, alternative art space that’s about to be regenerated (or to put it in plain English, flattened and sanitized) by the people at the top who have vision, determination, and big steel wrecking balls. The people at the top are part of the problem not part of the solution.
Leeds? Come on, how about Bradford? If the urbis was to be exported (and dont get me wrong, i generally hate rolling out models – especially in what are supposed to be the creative industries) then why not Bradford?
The national media museum is excellent, so is Impressions just across the way, why not take over the ill fated odeon (or bulldoze it and rebuild on the site) to have a real cultural concentration in a city that is alive and vibrant but just needs a bit of a helping hand at the moment.
It would be ace to have it in Leeds, but I cant see it happening the only thing Leeds council seems to invest in is more brick paths up and down the empty shops of Leeds.
Since the Henry Moore Institute seems to re-think what it is all about and possibly scale down operations considerably, Urbis could take over, and keep the building alive …
On the contrary, the Henry Moore Institute is very much still here, exploring all aspects of sculpture (in 2010 we’re showing a huge range of works from Ice Age to contemporary). We’re opening Alan Johnston to the public tomorrow – see the animated trailer on our website
http://www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk/hmi/exhibitions/alan-johnston
Going back to the topic in hand, I am personally very sad to see Urbis go and would love to see it resurrected, in Leeds, or anywhere else.
I love and hate the henry moore building, from the outside i love it, but i find its entrance so intimidating that i haven’t been into the building for over 7 years because i cant bring myself to walk up that long tunnel. Its a fantastic example of audience unfriendly architecture. Which muppet designed it? But back to urbis…perhaps its best to let it end on a high…
@Simon Belt – the Old Broadcasting House sort of already has a full time use as office space for the nti and co-working space for a host of freelancers so not that much room for Urbis-scaled exhibitions. Also Leeds Met owned so that would introduce a host of interesting complications, although links to a higher ed establishment could be exactly what ‘Urbis’ needs.
Temple Works would be a fab place for those sort of exhibitions – and the building has plenty of character – but like many people have commented, it would take some finickity planning and financial considerations.
No good getting some funding and ending up with a culturally inappropriate entity that doesn’t have any sustainability or application to a wide enough audience.
Likewise the Bradford Odeon would be a fantastic building to host an Urbis – style ‘thing’. Is there enough public interest in either of these places? Could easily become a flogging horse of ‘oh look the council’s spent £x million pounds again on a project that only benefits a small percentage of the community’.
@Rob Elliott like the corn exchange suggestion too – they’ve really made a hash job of that place, don’t think anyone really knows what to do with it now. 90% of the units empty despite the refurb.
Interesting stuff. Will definitely miss the Manchester Urbis I remember from my time there, inside and out.
I’ll miss Urbis and it gives me one less reason to visit Manchester. I really hope it will be reborn elsewhere or at the very least generate touring exhibitions that are not tied to a venue.
The UK does need more popular culture exhibitions –and without going too spammy 20-21 Visual Arts Centre in Scunthorpe has been putting on popular culture themed exhibitions since 2001 (albeit on a smaller budget) which always bring in their biggest visitor figures so surely bigger cities are missing a trick?
Leeds should kidnap Urbis because they have a Super League rugby team and Manchester doesn’t. Salford City Reds don’t count because theoretically speaking it is not part of Manchester.
I’ve barely been in the Urbis – it just seems like one big hunk of cold and boring glass.
The concept is based on city life, so maybe it should bang in the middle of a city – for example something where the Leeds Shopping Plaza is being redeveloped.
Wouldn’t it be awesome to be in a store or sitting in a coffee shop and having a large open doorway backing into a gallery. Each shop could have it’s own entrance into the heart of the building; people passing through to this huge, central and open exhibition.
I know it’s rather far fetched, but the idea of city life to me means familiarity, everyday routines but yet still finding those few quirks in places you thought you knew like the back of your hand.
You can not kidnap something that has been, shamefully, abandoned. You can only offer it sanctuary.
Bradford in the old Odeon building remodeled.