Beetham Tower Above Lower Mosley Street, Manchester

25 September 2019 · Manchester

Beetham Tower's diagonal apex drives straight into the overcast sky above Lower Mosley Street, its glass facade holding the cloud's grey tone back at it. Below, the Metrolink viaduct, Victorian brick of Manchester Central, and the ordinary clutter of traffic infrastructure build a layered urban stack — a century and a half of the city compressed into a single frame. The street-level vantage keeps the tower from becoming abstract; the city is still working around its own landmark.