MSA Event – A Life in Ten [Manchester] Buildings

A Life in Ten [Manchester] Buildings followed by the MSA Summer Social

Phil Griffin has been writing about buildings and spaces in Manchester through four decades. His friend and collaborator Jan Chlebik has been photographing many of the same places throughout the same period.

Phil Griffin talks about ten buildings that have hosted important bits of his life, and formed his thinking about cities, citizens, spaces and behaviours. He argues for the primacy of buildings in the city story. “People are transient, mortal. So are buildings, but they will outlive us, transform, adapt, reset. Buildings and the spaces they define, are a city’s temporality. I navigate by buildings. I count my years in buildings. My biography is a schedule of buildings. Buildings, their aspect, stance, materials, shadows and lights, attitudes and presentations mark me and my place in the city. Many buildings are maintained, modified, added to, adapted and repurposed. It is these buildings, quite as much as the newest additions to the stock that give a city profile”.

Talk will be followed by MSA Summer Social including food and drink.

Images by Jan Chlebik
Header image by Dunk