National Football Museum, Manchester — Glass Facade

5 October 2019 · Manchester

The National Football Museum fills the frame from street to skyline, its curved glass curtain wall rising to a sharp point above the Urbis building's footprint in central Manchester. Coloured typographic lettering — Drama, History, Skill, Passion, Football — runs down the facade in bold bands, turning the architecture into its own billboard. An overcast sky presses flat behind the glass, keeping the building's reflective surface sharp. The street below is working city: tram tracks, pedestrians, a Hard Rock Cafe sign competing from the right. Architecture that makes its argument loudly and means it.