Festschrift for John Archer

Thursday 11 January saw Continuity in Architecture attending a celebration for the eightieth birthday of the architectural historian John Archer. John is a former lecturer at the University of Manchester School of Architecture, and the event was hosted by the Manchester Metropolitan University, the successor institution to the Manchester Municipal College of Art from which he graduated in 1953. The evening was organised by the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, and John was presented with a specially bound volume of their new book “Making Manchester: Aspects of the History of Architecture in the City and Region since 1800: Essays in honour of John H.G. Archer” edited by Clare Hartwell and Terry Wyke. Among the collection of essays is one by CiA contributor Andrew Crompton entitled “The Destruction of Durnford Street School, Middleton” recording the demise of a pioneering work by Edgar Wood, the architect who has been the subject of constant research by John since his undergraduate days. In the photograph John is pictured outside Wood’s most celebrated and extraordinary work, the First Church of Christ Scientist, Victoria Park, Manchester.