We took a trip to Manchester’s Hard Rock Cafe today. It is part of the Printworks, an entertainment complex housing various restaurants, clubs and a cinema multiplex. The building is indeed a former printworks, originally Kemsley House later being the Daily Mirror/Sunday Mirror press and formerly known somewhat vainly as Maxwell House after the Bouncing Czech.
It is an interior space formed by two lanes at right angles, very lofty and also very cluttered by stuff, some of which may wll be original, other stuff clagged on just to look technical. (One end wall is covered in random air ducts and a large fan). I took a few snaps and also found a 360 degree image.
I tried to work out the possible form of the interior before being themed up and it wasn’t really clear. I’d seen inside one or two Fleet street buildings in the 70s (from the loading bays) and they need heavy lifting facilities for the huge paper rolls and printing press repair but there weren’t any in evidence. I have a sneaking suspicion that it all may be an artificial construct within the facade.
If it is just theatrical street scenery, it is rather imaginative, apart from the interior Trompe-l’œil sky, I thought.
(I have been here before, to see Men in Black II in IMAX, additional thunderstorm sound effects on the tin roof)
hi shades i think you work with my dad
Comment by george — September 8, 2008 @ 5:41 pm
George, it is one big party, we don’t think of it as work at all…
Comment by Shades — September 8, 2008 @ 6:19 pm