The Barnes Wallis Building/Wright Robinson Hall is a university building in central Manchester. It forms part of the campus of the former

University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology 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 univer ...

, which merged in 2004 with the nearby

Victoria University of Manchester The Victoria University of Manchester, usually referred to as simply the University of Manchester, was a university in Manchester, England. It was founded in 1851 as Owens College. In 1880, the college joined the federal Victoria University. A ...

. It is unusual in that the two parts of the building have different names and different uses, though the building is a single structure, purpose-built by a single architect. It was built in 1963–66 and the architect was W. A. Gibbon of Cruikshank & Seward. The building faces across a green space at the centre of campus towards the Renold Building, which was designed by the same architect and constructed the previous year. According to the ''

Pevsner Architectural Guides The ''Pevsner Architectural Guides'' are four series of guide books to the architecture of the British Isles. ''The Buildings of England'' series was begun in 1945 by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, with its forty-six original volumes pu ...

'': "Its scale and form was designed to relate to the earlier building. It is all white concrete. The vertical stabbing funnel on the roof is designed to light the stairs." The low-rise structure facing onto the green space at the centre of the campus is the Barnes Wallis Building, named after the pioneering aircraft designer Sir

Barnes Wallis Sir Barnes Neville Wallis (26 September 1887 – 30 October 1979) was an English engineer and inventor. He is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the Royal Air Force in Operation Chastise (the "Dambusters" raid) to attack ...

who opened the building in 1967. This once housed the main campus refectory (closed June 2009), and until 2004 it was also home to UMIST Students' Association. For a number of years it was used by the merged

University of Manchester Students' Union The University of Manchester Students' Union is the representative body of students at the University of Manchester, England, and is the UK's largest students' union with over 40,000 members. It was formed out of the merger between UMIST Students ...

with a print shop, bar and shop. The building was for decades a central part of student social life. It is now largely given over to computer clusters and student workspaces, mostly used by the students of the engineering schools still resident in the former UMIST campus. Famous from the late 1960s to late 1980s amongst not just students, but also youngsters from across Manchester, for its Saturday Night Dances and Wednesday Technites. Many major rock bands played there, including

the Who The Who are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1964. Their classic lineup (1964–1978) consisted of lead vocalist Roger Daltrey, guitarist Pete Townshend, bassist John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon. Considered one of th ...

the Yardbirds The Yardbirds are an English rock music, rock band formed in London in 1963. The band started the careers of three of rock's most famous guitarists: Eric Clapton (1963–1965), Jeff Beck (1965–1966) and Jimmy Page (1966–1968), all of whom ...

Chuck Berry Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, guitarist and songwriter who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and de ...

Traffic Traffic is the movement of vehicles and pedestrians along land routes. Traffic laws govern and regulate traffic, while rules of the road include traffic laws and informal rules that may have developed over time to facilitate the orderly an ...

Jimi Hendrix James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter and musician. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential guitarists of all time. Inducted ...

Def Leppard Def Leppard are an English Rock music, rock band formed in Sheffield in 1977. Since 1992, the band has consisted of Rick Savage (bass, backing vocals), Joe Elliott (lead vocals), Rick Allen (drummer), Rick Allen (drums), Phil Collen (guitar, ...

, Dr Feelgood and

Nazareth Nazareth is the largest Cities in Israel, city in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. In its population was . Known as "the Arab capital of Israel", Nazareth serves as a cultural, political, religious, economic and ...

. Its bar today is named Harry's Bar after the Principal of UMIST at the time Harold Hankins. The naming of internal parts of the building was for many years a good indicator of the current political balance of the UMIST Student Union. The Large Assembly Hall was at times called the

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

Assembly Hall. Conversely, the Small Assembly Hall was at other times named the Sharansky Assembly Hall, after Soviet dissident

Natan Sharansky Natan Sharansky (; born 20 January 1948) is an Israeli politician, human rights activist, and author. He served as Chairman of the Executive for the Jewish Agency for Israel, Jewish Agency from June 2009 to August 2018, and currently serves as ...

. The 15-storey high-rise part of the structure is called Wright Robinson Hall, after the trade unionist and Lord Mayor of Manchester

Wright Robinson Wright Robinson (1876 – 1961) was a British trade unionist and politician. Born in Burnley, Robinson completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter. When he was 23, he was seriously injured in a fall, and then discovered that he had tubercul ...

, and is a student hall of residence. In January 2021, ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' listed the Barnes Wallis Building as one of Britain's

Brutalist Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by minimalist constructions that showcase the b ...

buildings most at risk of demolition and development. It was included in ''Brutal North: Post-War Modernist Architecture in the North of England'', Simon Phipps's photographic study of Brutalist architecture.

References

* ''Pevsner Architectural Guides — Manchester'', Clare Hartwell,

External links

Wright Robinson Hall entry on Skyscraperpage website
{{University of Manchester Buildings at the University of Manchester University and college buildings completed in 1964 Brutalist architecture in England