The reasoning behind these words is that Manchester is the ‘original modern’ city, the city in which so many world-conquering innovations were born, including passenger railways, the splitting of the atom, the computer, the industrial revolution, ground-breaking pop music, and more.

Coming up with a slogan to sum up a city is no easy task, but many will agree that if you had to come up with two words to sum up Manchester, the attribution ‘original modern’ is pretty apt.

The problems start, however, when you try to apply ‘modern’ to your own actions.

Just what exactly IS modern?

If we look up the dictionary definition, we find it means

applying to the present, new, innvoative

That is fair enough, but as we delve deeper we discover that ‘modern’ is not as it first seems.

The meaning ‘modern’ is tied to the age, so ‘modern’ by today’s terms is not the same as ‘modern’ by the standards of 70 years ago.

I feel there is a danger that a superficial interpretation of ‘modern’ could lead to a rejection of things deemed to be ‘old fashioned’, such as older buildings, or things that are no longer ‘flavour of the month’.

There is always a tension between ‘modern’ and ‘old-fashioned’ and in the context of Manchester.

Common images of ‘old fashioned’ in the Manchester or northern context, include rows of terraced houses, men in flat caps, whippets, old-fashioned cars, gas lamps and buildings with lots of ornamentation.

Common images of ‘modern’ conjure up high rise glass and steel buildings, contemporary apartments with floor to ceiling windows, ‘new millennium’ style public spaces with benches, furniture, light fittings that look vaguely futuristic.

That’s a very superficial view, but it’s one which still dominates the way we develo pour city. Manchester still seems to be sliding away from the former and more towards the latter.

A truer understanding of ‘modern’ recognises the qualities of things which were, and remain ground-breaking, innovative and trendsetting in their own time.

I’ve selected some artifacts from the Manchester cityscape - mostly buildings - and sorted them into two sets - ‘modern’ and ‘old-fashioned’.

Modern: Number One Deansgate

The quintessentially modern expression of upmarket Manchester is in fact based on a building style that dates from the 1920s. It was Le Corbusier, one of the founders of modernism, who dreamed up the idea of an all glass building. Looked at in this way, No 1 Deansgate is very old-fashioned indeed!

Old-fashioned: Liverpool Road Railway station

An old-fashioned stone facade, typical of a private house from the early 19th century, complete with front door and glass-paned windows. Only the circular plaque tells us that in its day, this was an ultra-modern and trend-setting facility: The very first passenger railway station in the world. But why doesn’t it look like a station?

Modern Manchester: No 1 Piccadilly Gardens

At Piccadilly Gardens, a traditional layout was replaced with a stark, modernist piece of urban design, complete with a glass and brick office block that blocks the view of traditional facades. Modern doesn’t necessarily mean better, and the post-millennium Piccadilly Gardens is the proof. It’s already started to look dated.

Old-fashioned Hulme: Deck access flats under demolition 1998

The modernist-style redevelopment of Hulme during the 1960s was one of the greatest planning disasters in the UK. After only a few years, dwellings meant to replace slums had turned into slums themselves, with leaking roofs, disintegrating concrete, and the social ills that go with a badly-conceived urban environment. Nothing could have been more modern than Hulme in 1969, but by 1973, the modernist dream had turned into a mid-seventies nightmare.

Old-fashioned street lamp near Cotton Tree pub Withington

Much of south Manchester has a quality of the 1920s and 30s, thanks to extensive areas of semi-detached houses. The pubs too, preserve a sense of tradition. The quaint 1920s street lamp enhances the effect and is a visible link with a time when suburban Manchester was rapidly expanding.

Modern street lamp near Cotton Tree pub

The nostalgic effect of the old-fashioned street lamp is destroyed by its replacement by a modern-style functional one. In the south of England, older street lamps are generally left in place, because they fit in well with the style of the urban environment. Not in Manchester, where widespread street lamp replacement is in progress. As with Piccadilly Gardens, modern is not necessarily better.

Modern Manchester: Daily Express Building

On seeing the Daily Express Building, now Expressnetworks, for the first time, many people remark how modern it looks, with its all-glass facade and curved corners. They are astounded to discover, however, that it was completed as long ago as 1938. Modern and new are not interchangeable.

Old-fashioned Manchester: John Rylands Library

With its stone facade and pointed windows similar to a cathedral, the John Rylands Library on Deansgate seems to point back into a distant past. Yet this is a building that opened its doors on the first day of the 20th century. And it had what by 1900 standards was an ultra-modern refinement: Electric lighting. The John Rylands Library: both ancient and modern at the same time.

The Pyramid Stockport

Symbol of the new Stockport, an unmistakeable landmark on the western approach to the town, a navigation point both car drivers and aircraft pilots alike. This office building stands on old industrial land just on the Lancashire side of the River Mersey. And yet the design harks back to the most ancient and famous architectural form in the world. The Pyramid Stockport, both modern and ancient at the same time.

Old-fashioned Manchester: Northcliffe House

A building deemed too old-fashioned and too difficult to be saved, it didn’t fit in with the contemporary glass and steel look of Spinningfields, and was in any case largely ignored by the general public. And yet this building, actually the facade was added to an older shell, is an exciting expression of American-style art deco modernism, the tower with references to the Chrysler Building. It was demolished in 2002.

York House: the very first modern building in Manchester

York House stood on Major Street, between Portland St and the New York New York pub. It was built in 1911 and was widely recognised as a forerunner of European modernist architecture. Despite a petition signed by internationally-renowned architects, it was demolished in 1975 to make way for a shopping centre that was never built. The site is now a car park. Manchester, not so original, and not so modern without York House. Just imagine what it could be used for today.

Trafford Town Hall Manchester and Oxo Tower London

Both Trafford Town Hall, opened as Stretford Town Hall in 1934, and the Oxo Tower on London’s South Bank, completed 1927, are strikingly modern in some respects, traditional in others. Today the Oxo Tower, with its neon lettering, looks modern. It’s difficult to imagine it was threatened with demolition but saved in 1986. In 2006, Trafford Town Hall, deemed suitablze only for the ‘old-fashioned council’ for whom it was built, may soon be demolished.

As we can see, what we thought was old fashioned turns out to be modern, and vice versa.

In the pursuit of superficial modernity, Manchester has allowed much of its unique identity to disappear. It’s also a city that suffers from a collective amnesia.

In the opinion of Eye On Manchester, to be ‘modern’ doesn’t mean demolishing buildings deemed to be ‘old fashioned’. It doesn’t mean slavishly following the latest fad in urban design, it doesn’t mean forgetting completely how Manchester was in other eras.

To be modern means recognising the truly innovative, not just in the context of the present, but in the context of all time. It means ensuring that the past remains a part of the present, and a part of the future.

Read more about modernist architecture on Wikipedia.