The Manchester Conference Centre is a conference centre in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

that used to be owned and managed by the Opal Property Group, which has several locations, distributed over the campus of

Manchester University , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

. As the Weston Building it was originally built, owned and operated by

UMIST The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) was a university based in the centre of the city of Manchester in England. It specialised in technical and scientific subjects and was a major centre for research. On 1 Oct ...

. When it was built in 1992,

British universities Universities in the United Kingdom have generally been instituted by royal charter, papal bull, Act of Parliament, or an instrument of government under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 or the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. D ...

had already become established in the conference market, providing large-scale facilities for conferences during university vacation down-time, and bringing in cash to help bridge the funding gap. The Manchester Conference Centre was built to appeal to the corporate market; the architecture is very modern, and all of its facilities are cutting-edge. The Sackville complex was built in 1991, using the latest technology at the time. The lower foyer features a pendulum reminiscent of a Foucault pendulums, but ironically it is not a real Foucault pendulum as it doesn't precess. Instead, once the pendulum is set swinging in a particular direction, it continues to swing in that direction without deviation, despite the Earth's rotation. The reason for that is unclear. As is common for such pendulums, it is pushed by an

electro-magnet An electromagnet is a type of magnet in which the magnetic field is produced by an electric current. Electromagnets usually consist of wire wound into a coil. A current through the wire creates a magnetic field which is concentrated in the ...

— embedded in the static sphere at the base — to keep it swinging. The Manchester Conference Centre's 117 bedroom hotel was rebranded in 2014 to The Pendulum Hotel.

External links

* http://www.pendulumhotel.co.uk Pendulum Hotel Website
Manchester Conference Centre website
Buildings and structures in Manchester {{coord missing, Greater Manchester

See also

External links