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The Daily Express Building, located on Great Ancoats Street, Manchester, is a Grade II * listed building which was designed by engineer, Sir Owen Williams. It was built in 1939 to house one of three ''Daily Express'' offices; the other two similar buildings are located in London and Glasgow. The pre-World War II building is notable for its timeless, "space-age" quality and is often mistaken for being much younger than it is due to its futuristic avant garde appearance. The building is futurist art deco, specifically streamline moderne with its horizontal lines and curved corners. It is clad in a combination of opaque and vitrolite glass. It was considered highly radical at the time and incorporated a growing technology, curtain walling. Unlike the London and Glasgow Express buildings, the Manchester building was designed by the engineer for all three buildings, Sir Owen Williams.〔 It is considered the best of the three Express Buildings, and is admired by architects such as Norman Foster and Mancunians alike. The building was Grade II * listed in 1974, just thirty-five years after its initial construction, and remains Greater Manchester's youngest II * listed building. ==History== The building was required to accommodate existing growth at the Daily Express during the 1930s. During this decade the ''Daily Express'' was the most circulated newspaper in the world with sales of up to 2.25 million. Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, owner of the ''Daily Express'', commissioned three buildings in London, Manchester and Glasgow which would help accommodate this growth. Beaverbrook stipulated that all three buildings should be of the highest architectural quality and assigned renowned engineer Sir Owen Williams to assist in the delivery of these three buildings. The London building opened in 1931, followed by the Glasgow building in 1937 and the Manchester building in 1939. Although similar to both buildings, it was uniquely different with Owen Williams acting as engineer and architect; the former two were both designed by Ellis and Clark. The Glasgow and London buildings were designed by chartered architects while Williams, although not a qualified architect, was a competent designer. The interior of the London building is lavishly decorated, but suffers from a poor and dense site. The architecture of the exterior and site of the Manchester building is regarded as superior which allows the building to shine. Williams kept the design simple, preferring curved corners, cantilever roof rails and a three-storey turret; all these features share more in common with a futurist streamline moderne design rather than art deco.〔 Only thirty five years after opening, the building was Grade II * listed on October 3, 1974. The initial clients of the building, the ''Daily Express'', left Manchester in the late 1980s, possibly because other buildings in the area were in a poor state of repair.〔 However, after the ''Daily Express'' decided to leave the city, there was no new press which expressed interest in continuing the building's role as a printing centre, so instead this was discontinued; but printing does still continue in the area.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Ancoats and its building today )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Daily Express Building, Manchester」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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