JOAQUIM MANUEL GRAÇA DA PAZEnvironmental Psychology - M.S.A. 2007PEOPLE AND PLACE MODULE :Grosvenor Square-Manchester

IDENTIFICATION

Grosvenor Square is located at the centre of Oxford Road – Manchester, as the heart of AllSaints Campus, working like an outdoor of the University, and the reasons for my choiceare multiple, starting by the location, near from where I’m living, what better facilitatesmy observations, but also by the fact of beinga site with so many different people passingthrough or using it, with so many differentactivities taking place, providing good quantityof observation material.But there are also some associations andsome kind of attachment involved, as it’s wasthere where myself and class-mates stayed atlunch time, when our first visit to theArt&Design final year exhibition, and whichFaculty were to become my own “home” after a few months, and this same place, sincethen, being crossed and seen and used bymyself almost everyday .

PHYSICAL FORM - 1

In the centre of the park there’s a stone wall asremaining of the perimeter of the former All SaintsChurch, demolished in 1949 following bomb damagedduring the blitz of 1940. The majority of the surroundingchurchyard, now the park, was used as a

graveyard

and it’s said to contain the remains of 16.500 peopleburied there during the 19th. century. Being part of All Saints Campus, the square issurrounded by the University buildings, most of them of historical importance, the oldest being the former Medlock Town Hall, built in 1831, of which only thefaçade remains, and side by side the Grosvenor Building, the only one which still being used for itsoriginal purpose.Another interesting architecture examples are, theOrmond Building, from 1881, now used as office for theFaculty of Art & Design, and most recent, the All SaintsBuilding, from 1977, by Sheppard Robson Partners,remodelled and enlarged in 1994-96 to better accommodate the Library of this Faculty.