Coming Soon!
Coming soon: Sci-Eng50 – an exhibition celebrating 50 years of sciences at John Dalton.
We would like to welcome you to the Preview of the Sci-Eng50 exhibition, please be sure to book your ticket early to avoid disappointment.
Opened by Harold Wilson in December 1964, the John Dalton Building heralded the dawning of a new age of UK technology. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of this landmark event, Manchester Metropolitan University, together with the Manchester Modernist Society and the North West Film Archive, brings you Sci-Eng50- a public exhibition and programme of walking tours and film shows documenting the transformation from John Dalton College into a new university for the city of Manchester.
The exhibition is organised into three clusters: People, Places and Machines. You will have the chance to see the architectural models of university buildings and original architectural drawings of the John Dalton building showing how the site has grown and developed over the past 50 years. There will be images of staff and students throughout the decades as well as archive magazines and publicity. On display there will also be a range of various scientific machines and artefacts from the site. Don’t miss the original guest book from when the site was opened. Sign your name and share your JD memories next to Harold Wilson’s signature from 50 years ago.
Refreshments will be served during the evening.
The exhibition is open 10am – 4.30pm weekdays between 27th October and 21st November, at the Holden Gallery Cafe Space, Manchester Metropolitan University: See venue information here.
The walking tour will take place on the 25th October starting from the Chester Street entrance of the John Dalton building, find out more information and get a ticket here.
Richard Brook, of the Manchester Modernist Society, is giving a talk in the Manchester Central Library on the 29th October titled Oxford Road; the promise, the planning and problems. Get information and buy your ticket here.
The film screening of The Inquisitive Giant (1957) and Garbage In / Garbage Out (1969) will take place on the 30th Oct. at Manchester Central Library, find out more information and book your ticket here.
Sci:Eng50 The Models
Mancunian Way & MMU Business School
Mancunian Way with John Dalton Phase 2 on the right
All Saints
Oxford Road
St. Augustine’s Church
The Opening
These images are from the commemorative brochure published by the City of Manchester Education Committee as the programme for the official opening on the 19th of December 1964.
Science & Engineering in perfect harmony
Science & Engineering in perfect harmony – its Jodrell Bank in the Polytechnic Prospectus.
Opening Ceremony
Take your seats please.. its 10-40 a.m.
Department of Metallurgy
In the days of full grants and housing benefit in the holidays, what more would you need to attract students to the Department of Metallurgy? Well this fine Prospectus for one thing.
Science & Modernism: Walking tour
As part of Manchester Science Festival, Manchester Metropolitan University and the Manchester Modernist Society are pleased to present a walking tour of Oxford Road – the city’s own ‘Knowledge Corridor’. Over the course of the 20th century, Oxford Road has become the site of some of the world’s greatest scientific discoveries – from splitting the atom to the recent discovery of graphene. The street is home to some of the city’s most challenging and controversial Modern architecture.The tour will intertwine the history of Oxford Road’s development over the last 100 years together with profiles of the some of the great, and not so great, scientists who once perambulated along this historic thoroughfare.
The tour will end at the Sci-Eng50 Exhibition at the Holden Gallery. The exhibition will show scientific equipment from the last 50 years, as well as photographs and architectural drawings and models of the development of Manchester Metropolitan University campus.
Dr Steve Millington (Manchester Metropolitan University) and Eddy Rhead (a founding member and trustee of the Manchester Modernist Society and regular contributor to the society’s magazine, The Modernist) will lead you on an examination of how higher education has become entangled in the planning, architecture and branding of the city – from the post-war re-imagining of Oxford Road as an educational and cultural precinct to its modern position as a driver of a global knowledge economy.
So please meet in the Chester Street entrance of the John Dalton Building (Oxford Road), Manchester Metropolitan University at 1pm on Saturday 25th October. The tour is free, but places are limited to 25 per tour.
Feel free to come early and enjoy the Science Extravaganza taking place in the John Dalton Builiding on Oct. 25th as part of the Manchester Science Festival.
Reserve a free place on the tour here.
On the drawing board
John Dalton Phases 1 & 2 on the drawing board. The drawing of phase 2 has a fair bit of rubbing out, Tippexing and reworking.. ahh in the days before computers, a bit of Tippex could change the whole wing of a building.
Its a Dental thing…
If you look closely.. yes, it is a tooth on the end of those tweezers
70’s Selfie
Bob Cliff: Physics Technician late 1970’s
John Dalton Central Block corridor, outside C10 Lecturer Room. It is reversed as I am looking into the blacked out door glass, which is acting as a mirror. (note radiation monitoring film badge)
The door was to, the then recently removed, John Dalton Library. Behind me is the top of the stairs down to the Staff and separate Student Refectories and the Assembly Hall complete with a proscenium arch stage. The Commemorative Opening Plaque was on the wall outside the Hall.
I think it was taken in about 1979, but may have been 2 or 3 years either or later. I’m sure some people will remember the mural on the corridor leading to the Dean’s Office and the door to the walkway to the ‘New Extension’ building.
Sci-Eng50 