Motto | Many Arts, Many Skills |
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Type | Public |
Location | Manchester, England, UK |
Website | http://www.artdes.mmu.ac.uk/ |
Manchester School of Art in Manchester, England, was established in 1838 as the Manchester School of Design. It is the second oldest art school in the United Kingdom after the Royal College of Art which was founded the same year.
The school opened in the basement of the Manchester Royal Institution on Mosley Street. It became the School of Art in 1853 and moved to Cavendish Street in 1880. It was subsequently named the Municipal School of Art. In 1880, the school admitted female students, at the time the only higher education available to women, although men and women were segregated. The school was extended in 1897.
The school became part of Manchester Polytechnic in 1970 and is now a faculty of the Manchester Metropolitan University. Its 175th anniversary in 2013 was marked by the opening of a new building and the refurbishment of the Chatham Tower. The school comprises five departments, the Manchester School of Architecture (MSA), formed in 1996 and jointly administered with the University of Manchester, Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design (MIRIAD) Research Centre and the Departments of Art, Design and Media which incorporates the Manchester School of Theatre.
The Manchester Municipal School of Art was built in Cavendish Street in 1880–81 to the designs of G.T.Redmayne. On a rectangular plan it was constructed in sandstone ashlar with buff terracotta dressings. It is two storeys high above a basement and has slate roofs with glazed skylights. Its symmetrical facade, built in the Neo-Gothic style, has large gabled wings with pinnacles at either side of its buttressed and blind arcaded main range. In the centre is a chamfered doorway with a moulded arched head and carved spandrels above which is a canted oriel window with a steep roof against a gable with pinnacles and a finial at the top. The building is Grade II listed.