Campus design explored with The Modernist at Manchester Art Gallery

The Modernist, the Manchester-based architecture and design magazine for lovers of all things 20th Century, goes back to school for its new issue, focusing on the best of campus architecture as the new academic year rolls in. The magazine’s back bigger and better, with more pages and more colour. Such is The Modernist’s popularity that early editions are entirely sold out so be sure to get your copy, hot off the press, at the free launch party, this Thursday. Writers ranging from architecture critics and historians to design enthusiasts and aficionados, have interpreted the theme of ‘campus’ in loose and imaginative ways, and at the launch you’ll be able to discuss the finer points of modernism with some of the writers over a glass of wine. As well as visiting campuses in Cambridge and Middlesex, the magazine includes articles on a women’s institute in Barrow, student digs, Communist-era housing and, closer to home, the Co-operative’s complex of buildings in Manchester. Five issues in, the Modernist is offering an increasingly international take on modernism, and ‘campus’ also takes us to the Montreal Olympic village, Yamasaki’s distinctive Detroit campus and Lisbon’s green modernist wonderland Campo Gulbenkian. Meanwhile anyone who has fond memories studying at the University of Manchester’s former ‘North’ campus, amidst the landscaped grounds, science and technology-inspired artworks and giant Vimto statue, will enjoy a profile of the evolution of the UMIST campus (an element of which is pictured) which is now vacated and awaiting the next chapter in its history.

Thu 13 Sep, The Modernist Issue 5 launch, Manchester Art Gallery, Mosley Street, M2 3JL. Tel: 0161 235 8469, 6pm, free, www.the-modernist-mag.co.uk 

Image: Richard Brook