A student pointed out this wonderful web page about contemporary urban explorations.
www.28dayslater.co.uk
There are excellent pictures of Manchester’s Second World War air raid shelters. They have been part of
my urban myth since long but I had never seen picture before. There are also picture of Mayfield
station, a huge derelict railway station right in the centre of Manchester. It must be one of the last
spots of undeveloped real estate in the city’s centre. Coincidently I saw news about a major
investment scheme For Mayfield station today. Hurry if you wish to see it.
Other threads are also fascinating. I found hospitals particularly intriguing although for morbid
reasons. Something nightmarish hangs in these rooms. Their walls, saturated with pain, are slowly
releasing the sufferings of former inmates through decomposing material, flaky paint and rotten roofs.
Voila a book by Keith Warrender about Manchester’s underground:
All over Europe, cities are faced with the challenge of using cultural resources to re-position their
city in an increasingly culturally and economically diversified European space. Related to this is a
clear recognition of the growing importance of cultural resources for economic and community
development. This produces new opportunities and challenges for local cultural planning and management.
In order to fully exploit the innovative and supportive role of culture in European urban development,
it will be necessary to develop a new socially and culturally sensitive professionalism, able to cross
the boundaries between the arts, design, urban and spatial planning, public policy and the market,
artistic creativity and cultural management.
The MA in European Urban Cultures offers a specialist programme aimed at graduate students from Europe
and elsewhere with undergraduate degrees in subject areas such as the social sciences; cultural and
leisure studies; art, design and architecture; urban theory and planning; cultural marketing and
management. The course is also targeted at professionals and administrators eager for the latest
experiences, ideas and insights in urban cultural policy.
