MANCHESTER METROPOLIS.

Manchester's medieval core is the subject of a major urban regeneration project involving a new public square, various visitor attractions and Urbis, a centre for social history that examines the evolution of the modern city.

In June 1996, part of Manchester was devastated by a terrorist bomb placed in a crowded shopping street. Out of the destruction and the rubble arose a new plan to revitalize the city centre. As this evolved, backed by huge private sector investment, the medieval core around the Cathedral and Chetham's School of Music became the focus of energetic planning for a distinctive millennium project. The plan for the Manchester Millennium Quarter includes a new public square (designed by Martha Schwartz), a visitors centre for Manchester Cathedral, a city park and Urbis, a new cultural attraction that explores people's experience of the modern city. In a landmark building designed by Ian Simpson Architects, Urbis charts the development of life in the modern city, from the starting point of Manchester, one of the first modern conurbations of the industrial age. It aims to unwind the common strands that unite cities and promote a better public understanding of the way in which cities have evolved in the past and the is sues affecting their future development. This will be done in a stimulating way that connects to people's experience of their own city and the way they live within it.

Urbis occupies an island site between the Corn Exchange and George Stephenson's Victoria Station. Based on a boomerang shaped plan, the new building steps down from a prow at its south end to embrace a new public space. The ground floor is given over to shops and cafes, threaded through with a glazed street, to encourage general daily use as a public concourse. Above are various gallery and exhibition spaces, diminishing in size as the building rises up to the south. Occupying the sixth floor prow is a bar and restaurant with impressive views over the city. These upper level spaces are linked to a ground floor foyer by a promenade staircase and a funicular lift. Circulation is simple and legible and the stream of visitors thronging through the exhibition areas will add to the animation of the more general public spaces.

The walls of the wedge-like form are clad entirely in a delicately translucent glass skin, so that the building is perceived as a series of elements encased within a shimmering membrane. Through different surface treatments, the skin reveals the general activity of its interior, while concealing the actual exhibits. Varying degrees of translucence give privacy where required, and around the gallery floors, panels of sandblasted and textured glass are used to control daylight into the galleries. A cascading roof of copper heightens the impression of organic amorphousness and marks out the building as a conspicuously contemporary addition to the fabric and life of the city.