The Modernist is a society/magazine, dedicated to spreading the word of Modernist design, well-thought-out architecture and bold and brave displays of concrete.
Seeing as they’ve just moved over to a fancy new exhibition space/shop arrangement in the centre of Manchester (a magnanimous move for an establishment that doesn’t trade in ‘quirky’ burgers and expensive pints), now seemed like an alright time for a quick e-mail chit-n-chat.
Here’s an interview with co-founder Eddy Rhead about the new abode and how the times have changed…
After ten years as a ‘society’, and eight years of making the magazine – you’ve decided to open up a fully-fledged Blofeld-esque HQ, complete with exhibition space and a shop. Maybe an obvious question… but what led to this bold move? Is it something you lot have wanted to do for a while?
Yes – this has been a long time coming, but we’ve really struggled to find somewhere that fitted all the criteria. We have always had to beg and borrow spaces for exhibitions and events and people have been very generous in the past, but it takes a lot of energy and time to find venues.
That energy and time has meant we have let a lot of projects fall by the wayside or just never got off the ground. Now, with our space, that stress is lifted. If we want to stage an event or hold an exhibition then we are ready to go and can focus our energy on doing stuff instead of trying to find a place to do it.
What’s going to be there? What sort of things are you planning to do?
It’s a three storey building. On the third floor will be the boring stuff for running the Society and magazine – the offices and stockroom etc. On the first floor we would kind of like people to have access to our library of books and somewhere to just hang out and shoot the breeze with us. A bit like a hotel lobby. It will be somewhere we can have our own meetings, but if a small community group needs a space to meet they can use it too.
The ground floor will the main focus obviously. It will primarily act as an exhibition space but there will also be a retail element where we can sell our own publications and merchandise as well as a finely curated range of other products.
We’ll grow it over time and reveal more nearer the time but it will be design led products and stuff you can’t buy in the North West. It will also act as an event space – not only for our own events like talks and film shows, but if people want to hold book launches, product launches, etc, there then we would really welcome that.
Do you think it’s strange that there’s not more of these sorts of venues? There’s loads of buildings out there – but not many are for exhibitions or film screenings?
I don’t know about strange – just very frustrating. I think, culturally, Manchester is losing its way a bit. The Manchester spirit has always been to just get on and do it and that is all very well, but there needs to be accessible spaces to take chances and experiment.
Sadly, as the city centre has become financially more prosperous, space for creatives, who are usually skint, has become impossible to find. We are a creative organisation ourselves and will continue to hopefully carry on what we are doing, but we really want to bring people along with us.
We have always been about collaboration and Manchester is amazing that for that. We have always had people offer their talents to us because I think they see what we doing and seen we aren’t taking the piss. We aren’t in this to make money – we just want Manchester to be recognised as a hugely creative city.
We know loads of hugely creative people doing great work, but they struggle to find spaces to put it out there. We hope to be able to, in quite a modest way, offer an opportunity for creatives to show off their work. This is a democratic space and because we are an independent organisation we can put on whatever we want.
Saying that, we are kind of relying on people wanting to put their work in it, but judging by the responses we have already had we will not struggle to find stuff to put in the space. We’ve already got enough ideas to fill it for the first year.
I know you lot are having a shop in there – but the exhibition/gallery element seems at the forefront. Do you think it’s damaging that most buildings now are based around spending money and buying things? Do people need other stuff to do?
Don’t get me wrong – this space will have to pay its own way. The publications and merchandise we sell pays to keep the Society going and we are going to expand our own range of products and also sell other products too.
But we aren’t going to sell any old crap – it will have to fit with our own ethos of good design and high quality. We want to blur the lines of what is for sale, what is an exhibit and what is just our own stuff that we have lying around; “Yes, that book is for sale, but that typewriter isn’t.”
But, as you say, the exhibition is the prime focus on the ground floor. We want people to come and see the exhibitions we have on, hang around for a bit, have a chat, and if they buy something then that’s just gravy.
We’ve spoken to a lot independents in Manchester – be they bar owners or retailers and you would not believe how many are excited about what we a doing.
The thing is, even though they have businesses to run, they understand that Manchester cannot just be bars and shops. They understand that people need more than to just drink and shop. Nobody else was offering what we want to do so we just thought, "Fuck it – nobody else is going to do it so we should do it.”
The problem is there are powerful ‘gatekeepers’ in Manchester – landlords, property developers, the council etc, who just don’t understand what we are trying to do. Luckily we have found a landlord who digs what we do and understands that we bring a new and interesting element to the area.
Were you annoyed you couldn’t be in a Modernist building? Or will you be fitting a Mitzi Cunliffe relief to the front?
Yes – its kind of ironic we are going to be in one of Manchester’s oldest buildings. Ideally we would love an empty Modernist white cube but we just cant compete in that market.
Our building is a listed Georgian weaver’s cottage so couldn’t be further away from our own aesthetic but its a really nice spot, we have some great neighbours and we think its going to work for us. As I say the building is listed so I don’t think we’ll be putting a concrete mural on the outside (as much as we would like to).
Changing subject a little, after a decade of the Modernist Society – how do you think peoples’ attitudes to this sort of design have changed? Do people appreciate it a bit more now?
Without a doubt. When we first started we thought ourselves as just a bunch of cranks interested in some crazy, niche shit. We kind of laugh now about how much we sweated about doing our first MODERNIST badge and how nervous we were about ordering them – thinking that no one would buy it. We have now, literally, sold thousands of them and people keep buying them.
Stuff we were into 10 years ago is now pretty mainstream and you can buy £100 coffee table books about Brutalism and the like. I like to think we had a hand in people appreciating this stuff more – that’s kind of at the core of what we set out to achieve.
It’s a bit of a double-edged sword and I have to hold my tongue sometimes when some mainstream magazine or newspaper rings up and asks us to name ‘The 10 Best Brutalist Buildings’ and they clearly don’t get it.
But saying that, it’s great that a new generation of people are getting into what we’re in to – they don’t have many of the preconceptions and prejudices about Modernist architecture that many people from a certain generation have.
And as a final question, do you think your attitudes have changed at all since you started out? Is there anything you weren’t into then that you now appreciate?
Every day is a school day. We have been very lucky with the Society and the magazine to meet some super interesting people from all over the world and almost every day I’m finding out stuff I had no idea about. That’s what keeps it interesting and what keeps me doing it.
I have a pretty curious mind so am always keen to find out new stuff and I think we have only scratched the surface.
It’s been great setting up our other chapters in English cities but it would be great to take this international. There is so much amazing architecture and design around the world that I know nothing about and life is just too short. At this moment in time, in Britain, I think we need to making a real effort to be reaching out to our friends around the planet instead of becoming more isolated.
As far as my own attitude, I’m slowing coming round to Post Modernism. I used to hate Post Modernist architecture but some of it is growing on me.
It’s like anything – there was a lot of crap but the cream rises to the top and some of it was pretty good. We may even put on an exhibition on Post Modernism at our new place if anyone is willing to curate it…
The Modernist is now open at 58 Port St, Manchester, M1 2EQ
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