Manchester

Manchester is the first in a brand new series of affordable, pocket-sized guides to England's cities and the first to include integrated colour illustrations.

Clare Hartwell's detailed guide examines the full range and variety of Manchester's buildings old and new: from the exceptional medieval buildings of the Cathedral and Cheetham's School to the architecture of the city's Victorian heyday; from the on-going battle to preserve the heritage of the world's first industrial city to the transformation of the city centre since the terrorist bomb of 1996.

Clare Hartwell also assesses the city's recent building boom, both its successes (including Stephenson Bell's new International Convention Centre, Hodder Associate's Carrer Services unit and MBLC's Aytoun Library) and its failures.

Fresh attention is given to neglected areas including Hulme, once notorious as home to one of the most dysfunctional housing estates in Europe but now undergoing one of the country's most ambitious experiments in community architecture. Major projects of national importance are also covered in detail, including Michael Wilford's Lowry arts centre in Salford and Trafford's Imperial War Museum in the North, Daniel Libeskind's first building in England, which promises to be as exciting and innovative as his celebrated projects elsewhere in Europe.

Consideration is also given to the often-overlooked architecture of the 1960s, from the intimacy of the Oxford Road Station to the cool American lines of the ICS tower and the underrated Brutalism of the UMIST.