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C O N T E X T 1 7 9 : M A R C H 2 0 2 4 37 IAN WRAY Nairn’s Manchester revisited The celebrated writings of Ian Nairn (1930–1983) on towns and cities offer unusual perspectives on their conservation and planning, and insights into 1960s’ thinking. Perhaps the most inspirational postwar writer on architecture, conservation and what we now call urban design, Ian Nairn was a short, blunt and stocky chap, overfond of Guinness. His style took no prisoners, by turns sharp, poetic, pugna- cious and wise, but always engaging and to the point. In the 1970s, his best-known book Nairn’s London took me on educational jaunts across the capital, armed with an old A-to-Z Street Atlas. Nairn is less well known for his insightful series of essays on other English towns and cities, which were first published in the Listener magazine in the early 1960s, later as a BBC book and recently republished1. These days, the essays operate on several levels: as introductions to the places; as insights into 1960s thinking; and as an informed prospectus for what they later became. The essay on Manchester, these days the best example of a northern city reborn, is a good place to start. As late as the 1960s, it was the city of artists LS Lowry and Adolphe Vallete, of fog, smoke, rain, wet pavements, black stone and workmanlike warehouses, designed for the serious business of making money. We will have none of that expensive fancy stuff like Liverpool, I can almost hear my Manchester textile merchant father saying. Visitors in the 19th century, it is often alleged, asked where the amazing black building stone came from. It was explained that the blackness was a result of layer upon layer of soot. Only in the 1970s did the buildings emerge from their dark shrouds. It was the sooty city Nairn responded to – and perhaps part of the explana- tion for Manchester’s sheer determination to better itself. In Piccadilly Gardens, Nairn found the city centre’s sole area of green space replete with municipal floral displays. He was unimpressed: ‘This style of landscaping is wrong in the centre of a city.’ Evidently, someone agreed, for Piccadilly Gardens has been swept away to be The Sawyers Arms is still in business and sitting well in its context. (All photos by Peter de Figueiredo) 1 Nairn’s Towns , introduced and edited by Owen Hatherley, Notting Hill Editions.