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Mancs rejoice as loathed city centre landmark is FINALLY demolished

Good riddance to ya.

Daisy Jackson - 22nd August 2024

At long last, one of Manchester’s most disliked landmarks has disappeared from the city centre, as the scaffolding in Piccadilly Gardens comes down.

The concrete structure that carves across the southern end of Piccadilly Gardens, known by many as the ‘Piccadilly Wall’, is undergoing a bit of a transformation.

When it’s completed, the Piccadilly Pavilion will display a light installation with criss-crossed LED lighting, on the side of the Piccadilly Gardens tram stop.

The other side will have floor-to-ceiling windows looking into the businesses who are based here – viral corndog trader Bunsik and equally viral iced drinks brand Black Street.

This week, a major step has been made in the Piccadilly wall transformation project.

Now that some of the scaffolding has come down, we can see that the overhead concrete canopy is gone. Vanished. No more.

What a happy day.

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The light installation is also being installed as we speak.

The Piccadilly Wall wasn’t supposed to be such a divisive landmark. It’s actually designed by leading Japanese architect Tadao Ando following a competition to regenerate the area after the IRA bomb.

Ando is famous for his well-crafted concrete structures, including a circular fountain in Mayfair, but the scale and shape of his Manchester installation didn’t exactly go down well with locals.

The canopy of the Piccadilly Wall in Manchester has finally been demolished. Credit: The Manc Group

The canopy of the Piccadilly Wall in Manchester has finally been demolished. Credit: The Manc Group

The way it blocks off Piccadilly Gardens from the busy tram and bus routes has often been cited as a reason for the rise in crime and anti-social behaviour here.

And while providing vital shelter from the relentless drizzle, the canopy has also been blamed for encouraging crowds to gather in the area.

Though thousands of Mancs would love to see Piccadilly Gardens restored back to the rose-filled sunken gardens it used to be, this big block of concrete disappearing is definitely a welcome step in the right direction.

When a photo of the building work was shared in the Manchester Histories page on Facebook, one person wrote: “Long over due! Should stay open and become a gardens again.”

Another said: “Its such a shame that this wasn’t better thought out, with architecture like this context is everything, if it had been built by the university of Manchester, next to the wonderful collection of brutalist buildings there, it would have looked great, in Piccadilly it just added to the dystopian vibe, especially as it was constructed just as the spice epidemic kicked in, context is everything.”

Someone else said: “I don’t think it has any future as a “garden” in this day and age- too costly to maintain in the age of cutbacks. But demolishing the canopy is a start. This whole project was not Tadao Ando’s finest work and never worked for this space and purpose.”