Piccadilly Gardens Fountain, Manchester City Centre

2 October 2019 · Manchester

Piccadilly Gardens on a clear summer morning, the flat-jet fountain running at full height across the plaza. The water creates an unusual horizontal plane — low and wide against the sky — while the Mercure Hotel tower rises behind the brutalist podium in layered depth: pavement, fountain, concrete, glass, blue. Manchester's city centre does this well: civic infrastructure and commercial architecture stacked together until the whole composition starts to read like a poster.