Look More Slowly: Archisnap@Cube

Wary of the perfectly understandable but anodyne spin-speak of the city's PR promoters, Cube's first Manchester exhibition needed be a more lively and fearless account. Look More Slowly: Archisnap @ Cube by Phil Griffin, based on the popular Archisnap series in City Life, fitted the bill ideally - a witty, contemporary and knowledgeable scrutiny of buildings, streets and urban elements. Irreverent and merciless, the exhibition was laced with the kind of ironic humour typical of many Mancunians, a humour that masks a fondness for and deep affinity with its subject matter.

Steering clear of corporate faceless buildings, Phil Griffin took us on an altogether more entertaining and eclectic trek around the city. Through a series of large scale photographs and accompanying text, the Wythenshaw Park Bowls Pavilion is introduced as a neglected design classic and Griffin's dream home; the Have A Banana street trading caravan is eulogised for cocking a snook at the university: Library Walk gains automatic entry for its urban beauty; and the Jodrell Bank Lovell Telescope is confirmed as a 20th century icon.

Above all else Look More Slowly confirms that a city isn't only about bricks and mortar, but also the interaction of spaces and buildings, and how personal histories and work in other disciplines all come together in the big urban gestalt we know as the built environment.

Said Phil Griffin: "When Market Street still had traffic on it, and a cinema that showed foreign films, the side streets were full of pubs, boutiques and confident people. Then there was the Arndale, and a Chief Constable on a mission to rid the world of the sort of deviants who had the audacity to want to be out after dark. Arndale and Anderton nearly did for Manchester what German imperialism had attempted 30 years earlier. We survived, thanks to puffs(sic), punks and Chinese restaurateurs.

"Archisnap is a small attempt to monitor the progress of a redeemed city, and maybe to encourage people to look again at things that are familiar. I have pet hates, such as the inflicted clutter of St Ann's Square, and the wilful disfigurement of Market Street. I will take every opportunity, including this, to shout for the removal of Voyagers Bridge, which destroys the street and cuts the city into first and second class compartments. I'm a bit of a campaigner for streets. I think they are threatened by people who don't understand them. A street is not a pedestrian precinct, its a mixed use environment, and it is not there for the sole benefit of retailers. Before streets were invented people used to get about on the roofs of buildings. We should reinvent a bit of this for Manchester. We have very few roofscapes and high level views of the city. I think the roof of the Arndale tower should become a public space, with a dedicated external elevator. Then it would have some purpose.

"Buildings are repositories for the memories of a place. They tie down our existence and confirm our position. We have inherited some fine buildings, and I think it is our duty to hand some on. We need to be cautious about rates of change, and we need to remind ourselves that some of the low-rent grimy buildings and narrow back streets are what lifted us from the mud of the Irk and the Irwell in the first place. What we need now are a few more shiny towers, more association input in the city centre, and no more trees! (That's another of my little obsessions).

"As we continue to nurse out post-industrial neurosis, it is therapeutic to enquire, now and again, 'What is Manchester for?' I think that Manchester, like the Bison, is here to make life more interesting. Being interesting is a civic responsibility. Buildings are a useful expression of just how interesting we are prepared to be. They are not solely, or even significantly, an expression of the architects' craft. They are the city's set, the principle location. They should be spacey and grainy, loaded with atmosphere, crammed with dark corners for Orson Welles to lurk in. The set should have loads of style and glamour. It should be added to, modified and refurbished. It should be the work of different hands and minds. Some of it should be rehearsed, and some should be improvised."