Making Manchester 1990-2003
Photographs by Len Grant

Len Grant's photographic career is inextricably linked to the urban renaissance of Manchester. As Sir Howard Bernstein, Chief Executive of Manchester City Council states "No other photographer has captured so comprehensively the regeneration of this city over the last 13 years."

Whereas the norm in architectural photography is to photograph buildings when they are complete - and invariably devoid of people - Grant belongs to a different specialism: one that I would call built environment portraiture. His combination of wide-shot construction photographs with close-up images of construction workers shows a keen eye for the more intimate details of people and place, so much more than just a-matter-of-fact record of physical change. His lens records unsentimentally a process that is not only fascinating as a historical document of change, but also poignant in its record of human endeavour. Grant's philosophy follows the words of American curator John Szarkowski: "Architecture is not only a collection of buildings. It is a process. Photography of architecture should be less preoccupied with the finished building – an object – and more interested in the human and technical processes that precede and produce it".

Grants inclusive approach has recorded the decision makers, the entrepreneurs, the council officials, the architects, and those most affected by regeneration: the residents, and those with newly created jobs. But most of all he has recorded the builders who have constructed the new civic buildings, squares, cultural venues and areas that we all use and occupy. "The builders' labour infrequently gets credit and rarely are their actions recorded for public consumption and acknowledgement", says Grant. "Whilst many believe that the finished building is all that is worthy of recording for posterity, the builders are the ones who work the machines, operate the cranes and pour the concrete behind the hoardings."

CUBE has produced a book to accompany the exhibition, priced £9.95, which is available in the RIBA Bookshop..

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