 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Text-only version of these pages for regular e-updates and ticket booking |
||
   Click an image to see larger view Facts and figures A rare and visionary gesture Construction Plant tower Auditorium Organ Exterior Interiors |
||
| Artworks In conscious emulation of the past, the creation of The Bridgewater Hall was rightly seen as an opportunity to commission important, contemporary works of art and three significant artists collaborated closely with the architects in order to create pieces that were integral and complementary to the building. On the piazza, poised above the canal basin, is a polished, Carrara marble monolith by Kan Yasuda, made in his workshop at Pietrasanta in Italy. Yasuda's work is Japanese in its sensitivity yet European in its sense of architectural form, the play of light on the burnished surface suggesting an intense life in the marble which it cannot naturally possess. It is an object for intense contemplation - a moment of meditative silence in the heart of the city. Deryck Healey's new sculpture is essentially dynamic. Rising through four floors of foyers behind the glazed prow above the entrance of the building, it derives its inspiration from Manchester's central role in the history of the textile industry; billowing metal ribbons, like fabric frozen into stillness or unseen waves of sound, unfurl and develop like music and throw a lyrical wash of reflected colour onto the wall behind. Kate Egan created a series of twenty-six exquisite textile banners which hang beside and in front of the windows of the Barbirolli and Charles Hallé Rooms. Her 'Space Pieces' take the patterns of the cosmos as their starting point, but also make abstract reference to the rhythmic language of music. They are a piquant mixture of traditional embroidery techniques and surprising contemporary materials. |
||
