Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens is a superhero of many an architect so it’s perhaps fitting that one of his buildings is being reinvented in the centre of Manchester under the name of Hotel Gotham. Jess Unwin reports
The Art Deco building, designed by Lutyens in 1928 and completed in 1935, has undergone a multimillion pound conversion from former bank to a luxury 60-bedroom hotel with a name inspired by Batman’s fictional American home city.
Once home to Midland Bank, and then the HSBC Bank, every floor except the ground floor has been stripped back, with all non-original materials removed, to help create bedrooms, a reception, a restaurant, a rooftop bar and all the other spaces required for this Grade II-listed building’s new lease of life.
Situated in King Street and one of the city’s very grandest buildings, it ceased to be a bank in 2008. After a short hibernation, the sleeping giant reopened one eye when the basement and ground floor banking hall were transformed into one of the chain of restaurants run by TV chef Jamie Oliver. However, it is Bespoke Hotels, working with Marshall Construction Group, that will complete the reawakening when the Hotel Gotham opens to the general public in April.
On the ground floor, the hotel has a small entrance area, where original timber bi-folding doors and ornate cornicing have survived the changes. The hotel’s other lift lobbies also retain original hardwood feature doors and cornices. Restoration work has been carried out on the building’s terrazzo staircase and balustrade, which on the 4th floor includes a tell-tale reminder of its past life – a Midland Bank logo incorporated in the metalwork.
However, significant structural alteration was needed elsewhere. A spokesman for the in-house Marshall architecture team says a steel encapsulated raised floor was installed over the first floor level to provide a suitable void to locate foul drainage and services. This was necessary because of the Lutyens-designed vaulted ceiling within the Jamie Oliver restaurant below. It also provided suitable acoustic protection from the hubbub of restaurant noise. Holes through the floor to form the service risers were formed with steelwork connecting to the existing concrete-encased steel.
Visitors arriving at Hotel Gotham will travel up from street level to the reception on the 6th floor. This floor is also home to the restaurant, to be called Honey. With guests coming and going, plus the noise of diners, existing floor screed had to be removed on the 6th floor so that a sound barrier could be formed to prevent unwanted disturbance in the bedrooms on the 5th floor. Although the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors have impressive 4m-high ceilings, another challenge was incorporating services within the 4th, 5th and 6th floors, which have much lower floor-to-floor height. Marshall’s spokesman explains that, in particular, floor-to-floor height between the 6th and 7th floor is only 3.16m with large plate girders projecting into the space, leaving just over 2m to the underside of downstand beams. It was thanks to careful co-ordination of the M&E services that the ceiling between the 6th and 7th floors could be opened up, making the impressive restaurant possible. Open to non-residents, it boasts fabulous cityscape views of Manchester through original arched windows. Lutyens designed the building with a ventilation light well right through its core but consent was granted for its removal from 1st floor through to the 5th floor in 2010. Although the remaining sections no longer perform the function they were meant for, the original crackle-glazed tiles and window frames have been retained within the rooftop bar on the 7th floor. The 6th-floor light well now houses the toilet facilities to the restaurant. The 7th floor is largely given over to the private members-only bar called Club Brass, offering an exclusive rooftop retreat for VIPs. There are also three terraces at this level, facing north, east and west. On the bedroom floors, all rooms will have external views with the exception of a limited number of internal suites. The design of the bedrooms features travel trunk-style cocktail cabinets and wardrobes. Burnished metals, teamed with dark polished woods and luxurious leather, are coupled with notes of plum and raspberry; while soft velvet and faux fur are used liberally. A subtle nod is being made to the building’s banking past with money-bag style laundry bags and gold ingot toiletry displays.
Oliver Redfern, who worked with Squid.inc as part of the hotel design team, admits:
“For me, as soon as I was offered the chance to work on a Lutyens building I jumped at it. I studied Lutyens at university, so I was very keen to get onto this.”
He adds:
“It is a landmark and a cherished building in the city. It’s in the quality of the finishes we’ve put in that we’re trying to hark back to a quality and craftsmanship that you’d expect from a period building like this.”
The building’s Grade II-listed status does, of course, mean the internal fabric of the building – cornices, window surrounds and so on – had to be retained, which restricted thermal improvements. However, the hotel has been fitted with variable refrigerant flow (VRF) heating and cooling to all public areas and low-energy lighting has been installed throughout. For many years dubbed the King of King Street because of its size and castle-like design, Hotel Gotham’s neoclassical design is unusual for Manchester, which has led to the parallels with the Big Apple and inspired the Gotham name. Jonathan Schofield, freelance writer on architecture and much else besides in Manchester, describes the Lutyens building, with its striking Portland stone facade, as “one of the top five commercial buildings ever built in Manchester”. Lutyens was in his 50s and well established in British architecture by the time his designed the building for Midland Bank.
Jonathan continues:
“Lutyens was deliberately tricky, almost playful, in his later buildings. Here, the structure recedes in thirds, the bottom stage a third bigger than the second and so on. He also mingled the powerful but subtle neo-Baroque of Christopher Wren and his contemporaries with newer influences spreading about the nature of architecture in the 1920s.
“There might be huge classical arches here and massive cornices and obelisks, but much of the wall space is sheer, the window apertures unadorned, functional, to the point. Bauhaus eat your heart out.”
Lutyens (1869-1944) is chiefly known for adapting traditional architectural styles to more modern needs. He designed many English country houses but was also respons-ible for the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London (and Manchester’s Cenotaph, too); the British Embassy in Washington, DC; Hampton Court Bridge; St Jude’s Church, Hampstead, London. He has been referred to as “the greatest British architect” and besides designing several other commercial buildings in London is known for having an instrumental role in the design of government buildings in what is now known as New Delhi. Oliver says it was never his plan to create a hotel that was “a museum to Lutyens”. Instead the approach was to “use materials, finishes and techniques which paid homage to him”.
He continues:
“It may not be obvious to the average hotel guest but I like to think that someone with a love for architecture will say, ‘Oh yeah, I get what they’ve done there’. We’ve been sympathetic in our choices, tried to keep it contemporary but classic.”
With economic recovery continuing apace in Manchester there’s certainly a need for new hotels, from budget through to five-star, reckons Oliver. And he believes Lutyens architecture is in tune with the new century too:
“There’s a really nice clarity to his buildings – they’re not over fussy, they’re strong visually. I would say he was a very modern architect and I think he would have thrived in today’s architectural world.”