Principal Hotel Clock Tower, Manchester City Centre

30 September 2019 · Manchester

The Principal Hotel clock tower on Oxford Street, shot from street level looking straight up. The terracotta brick shaft compresses into a single vertical column — two clock faces and a baroque ornamental crown stacked against a pale, overcast sky. Victorian Gothic Revival architecture doing exactly what it was built to do: dominate the street. The low angle strips away the surrounding city and leaves the structure as pure geometry, ornate at the top and monolithic below.