From cultural institution to cultural consumer experience

Manchester Art Gallery had its origins in the Royal Manchester Institution, a Society for the Promotion of Literature, Science and the Arts founded in 1823. The Institution building was designed by Charles Barry in the Ionic Greek Revival style.¹ Greek Ionic was the order adopted for the British Museum, designed by Robert Smirke and begun in 1823.² Greek Revival was the style favoured for many public buildings commissioned in the post-Waterloo building boom promoted by George IV. He became the Royal Patron of the Manchester Institution and gave casts of the Elgin Marbles to adorn the entrance hall.³ The building served the Royal Manchester Institution until, in 1880, unable to pay off their overdraft on the revenue accounts, they asked Manchester Corporation to take over the building and its collections.⁴ The Corporation agreed to the transfer and from January 1883 took occupation of the building, when it became known as the Art Gallery. The need to adapt and extend the accommodation to display the expanding fine art collection was acknowledged in the 1880s and alterations were carried out to provide a suite of galleries at first-floor level. In 1898 land and buildings adjacent to the Institution were purchased by the Corporation and the adjacent Athenaeum Club, also designed by Barry, was acquired in 1938.⁵ The Athenaeum was subsequently used for exhibitions and displays of the City's collections. Schemes for a new building or extension to the existing one had been developed on at least four occasions during the twentieth century but all failed due to lack of funding. By the 1990s major refurbishment of the historic buildings and space to display the City's major fine and decorative arts collections were urgently needed.