CUBE : Centre for the Urban Built Environment : The City : Manchester Architecture Tours

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S & J Watts Warehouse – Britannia Hotel
35 – 47 Portland Street, 1851

Architect[s]:		Traviss & Mangnall
Area[s]:		Piccadilly
Theme[s]:		Grade II Listed Late Georgian and Victorian Warehouses

Manchester’s most grandiose textile warehouse innovates the Italian palazzo model through its use of a different architectural style for each floor. Using 27,000 square feet of glass, 40,000 cubic feet of timber, 5,600 tons of sandstone and 700 tons of iron, the massive and ornately decorated structure still dominates Portland Street. Most dramatic are the four pavilions of the top-most floor. Here the combination of the rose windows and the exuberant skyline reflect the commercial optimism that produced the building. Its subsequent conversion to a hotel in the 1980s seems entirely appropriate.

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